Foreign Crimes

March 14, 2011

John Paul Getty III

By the time John Paul Getty III died on February 5, 2011 – at age 54 – he had lost far more than the ear his Italian kidnappers had sliced off when he was 17 years old.

by Denise Noe

The old saying that “money can’t buy happiness” may never have been more dramatically illustrated than by the life of the recently deceased Jean Paul Getty III, grandson of the wealthiest man on earth. His father was scion Jean Paul Getty II and his mother was former actress Gail Harris. Paul, as Jean Paul Getty III would be called, was the oldest of four children.

It was quite unlikely that when he was born in England on November 4, 1956 that he would become best known for a crime committed against him. Grandfather J.  Paul Getty, a billionaire oil tycoon, described Paul during his early boyhood as “a bright, red-haired little rascal” and called him “most cheerful and cute.” The Los Angeles Times reported that as a toddler Paul “was said to be one of his grandfather’s favorites.” 

J. Paul Getty was often described by the moniker of The Richest Man in The World. Despite his vast fortune, he continued being a workaholic into his elderly years, putting in hours each day to try to make his almost unimaginable wealth even larger. He was also known for certain eccentricities such as an intermittent phobia of the telephone.

March 6, 2011

Mata Hari

To protect its deep infiltration into French intelligence during World War I, German intelligence conned the British and French into believing that Mata Hari was its superspy.  

by Robert Walsh

Dawn, Vincennes Barracks, October 15 1917.

Brought from her cell at the Saint-Lazare Prison less than an hour after hearing that her final appeal had been denied by the President of France, alleged superspy Mata Hari faced her firing squad seemingly calm and unafraid. She may well have led a somewhat ethically questionable life, but in death she seems to have shown considerably greater courage, fortitude and integrity than those who had conspired to place her there.

Mata Hari has long been the stuff of legend and myth, the glamorous, sexy superspy effortlessly using her feminine wiles and her physical charms to extract the highest level secrets from foolish, lecherous and indiscreet Allied officers through pillow talk before daringly passing the stolen secrets on to her German handlers. But how much spying did she actually do? What level of secrets, if any at all, did she manage to extract? Was she really the stuff of legend, a female James Bond with an equal talent for high-level espionage and flagrant promiscuity? Did she really cause the deaths of 50,000 Allied soldiers as her prosecutors claimed? Was she really, as has long been believed by so many, deserving of a place in the Pantheon of espionage legends?

November 29, 2010

Hawley Harvey Crippen

Dr. Hawley Crippen was small, balding, and meek, with large watery eyes that peered from behind gold-rimmed spectacles.  When he fled England for Quebec in the summer of 1910 with his mistress aboard the S.S. Montrose, he was wanted for the murder of his wife. Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Walter Dew was in pursuit aboard the speedier steamer, Laurentic. 

by Mark Pulham

One hundred years ago, in the summer of 1910, the world became enthralled by a transatlantic chase between two steamers. One was the White Star liner Laurentic, the other, the Canadian Pacific S.S. Montrose. Both were heading for Quebec. The world waited with excitement as each day the newspapers reported the progress of the two ships. The public’s interest was not about the ships themselves, but about who was aboard. On the Laurentic was Scotland Yards Chief Inspector Walter Dew. On the Montrose, fleeing with his lover Ethel Le Neve, was suspected wife murderer Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen.

The famous barrister Frederick Edwin Smith would later describe Crippen as “one of the most dangerous and remarkable men who have lived in this century…A compelling and masterful personality who feared neither God nor man.”

Nov. 1, 2010

Johann "Jack" Unterweger

With the help of future Nobel Laureate Elfriede Jelinek and other prominent Austrian literati, Jack Unterweger wrote his way out of a lifetime sentence for murder. Paroled in 1990, and now a famous crime writer himself, he embarked on a wide-ranging killing spree, murdering women in Austria, Czechoslovakia and Los Angeles. 

by Mark Pulham

Vienna. People sitting in cafés eating Sachertorte, listening to the music of Mozart and Strauss, walking through the Vienna Woods, and if you are a film buff, thinking about The Third Man. Vienna is synonymous with culture. It is not the first place anyone thinks of when you mention serial killers. Yet in the spring of 1991, particularly in the red-light district, the fear of a killer on the loose gripped the city.

It began on April 8, 1991, when a young prostitute named Silvia Zagler vanished. When last seen, she had been standing on her regular corner around 10:30 p.m. Sabine Moitzi worked in a bakery during the day. At night, unknown to her husband, she occasionally boosted her income by working as a “secret prostitute,” which meant that she was not, as is required by the laws of Vienna, registered with the Office of Health. Eight days after Zagler’s disappearance, Sabine’s friend, Ilse, dropped the 25-year-old woman off near the rail yard of the West Train Station. A short while later, she disappeared.

Sept. 23, 2010

An excerpt from the opening chapters of Marilyn Z. Tomlins’s Die in Paris, published in the United States in September of 2010 by Raider Publishing International. The book is available at amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and borders.com.

by Marilyn Z. Tomlins

In the early evening of Saturday, March 11, 1944, the telephone rang on the desk of the duty officer at the Porte Maillot police station house. Until that moment, Rue le Sueur in Paris’ elegant sixteenth arrondissement had made it into the news just once. That was in April 1912. That month, the French singer and actress, Léontine Pauline Aubart, from Number 17, had set sail from Southampton for New York with her lover, Benjamin Guggenheim, but she had returned to Rue le Sueur, alone and grieving. The ship she and her Ben had boarded in Southampton for the Atlantic crossing was the Titanic. Guggenheim had gone down with the ship.

Rue le Sueur would yet again be in the news.

On the phone was Jacques Marçais, a retired clerk. Jacques and Andrée, his wife, lived in an apartment at Number 22 Rue le Sueur. He was calling to report that for the past six days pestilential smoke has been pouring from the chimney of a townhouse across the street.

The duty officer did not understand why someone would think that a smoking chimney needed investigating. In 1938, world war had broken out and France had capitulated to the enemy – Nazi Germany – and, since June 1940, when the Germans had occupied northern France, which included Paris, they’d been imposing frequent power cuts on the Parisians.  It might have been spring, but it was still cold in Paris, and the Parisians had to light fires for heat. Consequently, in just about every Paris living room, a fire was roaring, and, from every Paris chimney, poured smoke.

Jacques explained. It was the chimney of an uninhabited house, and that was certainly not normal. The duty officer promised to send a patrolman over as soon as possible.

June 25, 2010

Dick Turpin

Dick Turpin’s romanticized image as the famed “Highwayman” of English lore was built on the big lie about his one-night ride from York to London on his faithful steed, Black Bess. Nor was he in any way a latter-day Robin Hood.

by Mark Pulham

“Stand and deliver,” Dick Turpin would shout, and with a brace of pistols levelled at the coachman, the romantic and reckless highwayman would relieve the passengers of their valuables. Dashing and daring, his tri-corn hat pulled low and a mask covering his face, he would flee on his gallant steed, Black Bess, into the night, his black cloak flowing behind him.

It’s an image that has been enhanced by numerous films going back to 1912, particularly by the Disney version and the 1970’s British television series. Who could ever forget his ride from London to York in a single night, his brave horse Bess dying from exhaustion to save his life? Who could not love the charming, handsome, courteous rogue that made robbery almost a pleasure? Certainly, this image of this latter day Robin Hood has passed down through the years with almost no change, thrilling generations of British schoolboys as the hero of numerous books. But is this an accurate portrayal of Turpin, was he really the handsome romantic hero we have seen in the movies? Hardly.

In the 18^th century, highway robbery was a common event throughout Europe and Great Britain, and anyone foolish enough to venture into the woods after dark risked robbery at gunpoint and even death. For the most part, highwaymen were ordinary criminals, but in England, on occasion, they were gentlemen who were maybe down on their luck, or were in it for the adventure. Dick Turpin, however, was not a gentleman.

June, 15, 2010 Special to Crime Magazine

An excerpt from Ron Chepesiuk’s new book, Sergeant Smack, The Legendary Lives and Times of Ike Atkinson., Kingpin, and his Band of Brothers. (www.ikeatkinsonkingpin.com)

by Ron Chepesiuk

PROLOGUE

December 9, 1972—It was to be a routine flight, one of dozens the retired U.S. Army Master Sergeant had taken since 1966 when he first arrived in Bangkok, Thailand. Given the colorful nickname “Sergeant Smack” by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), 47-year old Leslie “Ike” Atkinson, the squat retired U.S. Army master sergeant, was dressed appropriately for the long flight to the U.S. mainland: khaki pants, casual loafers and a loose white short-sleeve sports shirt. With his short-cropped curly black hair and military bearing, Atkinson looked like one of the scores of American servicemen, active and retired, black and white, who came to Bangkok in search of romance and excitement.

With Atkinson in the black Mercedes that sped through the chaotic streets of Bangkok was 30-year-old Thomas Southerland, a friend and fellow African American from Wilmington, North Carolina, whom Atkinson had known for nearly a decade. Like his companion, the trim, tight-lipped Southerland, or Sonny, as friends knew him, was a gambler—a card shark and hustler—and, their paths had crossed often in the numerous craps and poker games common in the black communities of eastern North Carolina. Southerland had visited Bangkok frequently, and over time Atkinson had become almost like an older brother to him.

Relaxing in the car, Ike assessed Southerland and could not help but admire what he saw. Fitted resplendent in an Army uniform complete with battle and service ribbons, Sonny looked like a war hero. He carried a military card that identified his rank as sergeant. His special orders explained that he had served a 12-year hitch in the Army, and they instructed anyone reading the orders to please accord all privileges worthy of such service. In reality, Southerland’s orders were totally bogus, forged by Atkinson himself, who, as a retired 20-year service veteran, knew the military system inside and out. His “privileges” made obtaining military uniforms, NCO stripes and badges as easy as shopping for groceries.

Forging IDs was so easy to do, in fact, that Atkinson did it himself in the comfort of his bungalow on a klong (a small canal), located in the heart of Bangkok. Southerland could spend several years in prison for impersonating a U.S. military non-commissioned officer; it was a serious criminal offense. But he looked confident; after all, he had performed this role before—as a courier, carrying heroin in the standard army AWOL bags. Specifically designed for military travel, the bags looked like gym bags, except that they folded out like an accordion and contained hidden pockets. The false bottom of the AWOL bag had been stitched and fitted to carry two kilos each of a potent type of heroin commonly known on the “street” as “China White.”