The Mammoth Book of Bizarre Crimes

by Odell, Robin

  “This is the Zodiac speaking” was one of his opening lines and he observed that he liked killing “because it is so much fun.” There were numerous cryptic messages, some with drawings and maps and others in plain language. Experts in calligraphy, cryptography and astrology minutely examined the steady barrage of letters in the hope of gleaning some useful clues.

  Ten days after the last murder, a man claiming to be the Zodiac killer called the Oakland Police Department and offered to give himself up provided he was defended by a well-known attorney. Melvin Belli, a high-profile criminal lawyer, accepted the challenge and received a number of phone calls from a man who complained of headaches and said, “I’ve got to kill.”

  What might have been a promising contact was broken off, but in 1971 the Zodiac killer began writing to the newspapers again claiming he had collected more “slaves”. This phase continued until 1974 with more threats and the claim that he had killed thirty-seven times. Analysis of homicide patterns in the USA suggested that the Zodiac killer might have killed forty victims at locations forming a large letter “Z” when plotted on a map covering several states.

  Contact with the Zodiac killer petered out and police believed that he might have died. In 2007, a film was produced based on the lives of those involved in attempts to trace the killer. Chief among them was Robert Graysmith, a writer who had chronicled the quest for the Zodiac killer for thirty years.

  Inevitably, comparisons were made between the Zodiac killer and Jack the Ripper, two unidentified serial killers, who were separated by time and continents. A trait they shared, however, was to write letters containing menacing threats and taunts.

  “Yes, I’m The Man . . .”

  In 1934, the seaside town of Brighton in the UK experienced two trunk murders in the space of a month.

  On 17 June 1934, staff at Brighton railway station became concerned over the smell associated with a trunk deposited at the left luggage office. Police were called and the trunk was opened to reveal the headless, legless body of a woman. The discovery created sensational newspaper headlines but, despite intensive enquiries, the identity of the dead woman was never established nor was the mystery of her murder solved.

  Among the many people interviewed at the time was twenty-six-year-old Tony Mancini who worked as a waiter at the Skylark Café in Brighton. A parallel line of enquiry was to check on missing persons in the hope of identifying the woman found in the trunk. When it became known that Violette Kaye who had disappeared on 10 May, had been living with Mancini, the investigation took on fresh impetus.

  Forty-two-year-old Violette Kaye was a former dancer who had become a prostitute and formed a liaison with Mancini. They lived together at various addresses in Brighton and after an argument at the Skylark Café on 10 May, Kaye disappeared. Mancini said she had gone to Paris.

  Soon afterwards, Mancini changed lodgings and moved into a room in Kemp Street, near the Railway station. A friend helped him with his belongings, which included a very heavy trunk. After being questioned by police, Mancini took flight to London and was not present when officers entered his room at Kemp Street.

  There, on 15 July, they found a trunk, which contained the decomposing body of Violette Kaye. Thus, enquiries into Trunk Crime No. 1 led to the discovery of Trunk Crime No. 2. Two days later, Mancini was arrested; he said, “Yes, I’m the man – I didn’t murder her though.” Post-mortem examination indicated that Kaye had been killed with blows to the head inflicted with a hammer.

  Tony Mancini, whose real name was Lois England, was charged with murder. His explanation of Kaye’s death was that he had returned to their rooms one day in May and found her lying dead on the bed. He panicked at what he had discovered, and its implications, and concealed her body in a trunk. He pointed out that because of her calling, Violette Kaye entertained many men in her room. Asked why he had not contacted the police, he said that a man who has previous convictions would not get a fair deal.

  Mancini was tried at Lewes Crown Court in December 1934 where he was defended by Norman Birkett. Counsel played on the panic that overwhelmed Mancini when he found the body and decided to conceal it. He pointed out that concealment of a body did not necessarily amount to murder. Birkett’s argument based on a chain reaction of panic, concealment and lies persuaded the jury, and Mancini walked away a free man after the court acquitted him. Forty-two years later he confessed in a Sunday newspaper that he had murdered Violette Kaye. The first Trunk Murder remained unsolved.

  Getting A Grip

  A man with a mutilated right hand, tried and acquitted of murder by strangulation, later confessed to the crime.

  Rose Ada Robinson was a sixty-three-year-old widow who managed the John Barleycorn public house in Portsmouth. She had been in business there for forty years and was in the habit of keeping the takings on the premises. When the pub closed on 28 November 1943, she took the money out of the cash till, put it in her handbag and retired to her bedroom.

  The following morning, she was found dead in her room and the takings, amounting to £450, were missing. Police found a broken window on the ground floor, which had allowed an intruder access. Rose Robinson had been strangled and there was evidence of a struggle. No fingerprints had been found at the scene and the only trace left by the attacker was a small black button found beneath the broken ground floor window.

  Known criminals in the area were questioned but no suspects emerged. The murder enquiry was faltering when two alert detectives in Waterloo Road, London, picked up a man who was behaving furtively. When questioned, he volunteered the information that he was wanted “for more serious” things.

  The man was Harold Loughans and he had a great deal of guilt that he wanted to get off his chest. The police just allowed him to incriminate himself and dig an even larger hole to fall into. He admitted killing a woman in Portsmouth and said it so preyed on his mind that he committed other crimes as a diversion. The problem with his story about killing Rose Robinson was that his right hand was mutilated and four of the fingers were just stubs. There were, though, various fibres on his clothing, which linked him to the crime in Portsmouth.

  During preliminary hearings, Loughans changed his tune and now claimed that the police had distorted what he had told them and protested his innocence. He was tried at Winchester Crown Court in March 1944 when three witnesses came forward saying that they had seen Loughans in London on the night of the murder. The jury could not agree a verdict and a retrial was ordered.

  This took place two weeks later at the Old Bailey when defence counsel called Sir Bernard Spilsbury as an expert witness. The pathologist testified that he had examined Loughans’s mutilated hand and did not believe he had sufficient gripping power to enable him to strangle anyone. Faced with this new testimony and the alibi, which the police had been unable to shake, the jury found Loughans not guilty.

  Loughans was in and out of prison with convictions for other crimes but twenty years after he had been acquitted of the Portsmouth murder, he sued the prosecutor, J. D. Casswell, for libel, on the grounds that the barrister had suggested he was lucky to have been acquitted. The libel case went to court in 1963 and Loughans lost. In effect, the jury in a civil case had overturned the verdict in a criminal trial but, as the law stood, Loughans could not be tried again.

  In a final twist, three months after losing the libel case, Loughans talked to a Sunday newspaper and signed a confession to murder. He claimed he had not long to live and wanted to set the record straight. He died at the age of sixty-nine two years later.

  Veil Of Silence

  The investigation into the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in her holiday home in Ireland was re-opened over a decade after her mysterious death.

  The thirty-nine-year-old French television producer was married to Daniel Toscan du Plantier, a distinguished figure in the French cinema world. She was found battered to death on 23 December 1996 at her home in Schull, West Cork. She had been spending a few days on her own before return
ing to France to celebrate the New Year with her husband. She had booked her flight ticket and spoken to him a few hours before meeting a violent death.

  Her body was found inside the gateway of her home. She was dressed in nightwear, suggesting she had opened the door to a late caller. She had been battered to death with a concrete block, which lay close to the body. Crime scene investigators found hair and blood in her fingernails, possibly originating from her attacker.

  The local community was shocked by the violent death of one of its wealthy visitors. The area had seen an influx of celebrity figures seeking a tranquil place to live and the beautiful natural environment attracted filmmakers and movie stars.

  The Gardai organized a man hunt to track the killer who had acted with such brutality. It appeared that a struggle had occurred at the du Plantier’s home and that Sophie had broken free and run out of the house. She was attacked with a metal implement, possibly a hatchet, and her fingers were broken as she tried to fend off the attack. Cruelly injured, she was dealt a death blow from a heavy concrete block smashed over her head.

  A characteristic of the murder investigation was lack of information. A newspaper correspondent was reported as saying, “. . . You sometimes think you’re dealing with an affair of state because everyone is so secret.” It was acknowledged that the dead woman, who was well-connected in French social circles, was a private person not courting publicity. Locals in Schull saw her as gentle and friendly. After her death, family and friends refrained from responding to questions from the media.

  The veil of silence, of course, did not stem the rumours, which ranged from sexual indiscretions to criminal links in the world of filmmaking. In the immediate aftermath of the murder, the Gardai appealed to the local community for anyone who might have information to contribute about the possible identity of the murderer to come forward.

  There was speculation that Sophie du Plantier knew her attacker and admitted him to her house. When detectives searched the premises, they found two wine glasses on the kitchen sink. Another curious feature of the crime scene was that, although the murder had occurred outside the house, both front and back doors were latched shut.

  Following pressure from du Plantier’s family, a French judge in 2008 ordered the exhumation of her body from the cemetery at Mauvezin in south west France. The hope was that forensic traces on the body might yield DNA leading to the murderer. The Gardai, who had come under heavy criticism for their perceived failures, made their files available to a new French-led investigation team.

  SOS Unanswered

  Twenty-eight-year-old Julie Ward was a keen amateur photographer. Her brutal murder in a Kenyan wildlife reserve in 1988 remains unsolved.

  The young woman had been in Africa for three months when she left Nairobi on 2 September heading for the Masai Mara game park. She was accompanied by a marine biologist friend and they were driving a Suzuki jeep. When the vehicle broke down they decided that her friend would make his way back to Nairobi and return with a necessary spare part. Meanwhile, Julie managed to fix the jeep and decided to drive back to Nairobi on her own.

  When she did not reappear, alarm bells started to sound, and after her father failed to contact her by telephone on 10 September, Julie was reported missing. John Ward flew out to Kenya and organized a search for his daughter. Her abandoned jeep was located three days later bogged down in the Sand River. The distress call letters, SOS, were visible on the vehicle’s roof where they had been marked out with mud.

  The search continued and, at a place called Keekovok, Julie Ward’s remains were found; she had been hacked and burned. Her father believed she had been kidnapped and murdered but the Kenyan authorities suggested she had been attacked by wild animals.

  The dead woman’s remains were returned to Britain for forensic examination. Pathologists concluded that she had been killed with a machete. An inquest into Julie’s death was held in Nairobi in August 1989. The Kenyan pathologist said his report confirming that she had been killed with a machete had been altered by his superiors. Clearly there had been mistakes in procedure, but in October, the Kenyan government acknowledged there had been foul play.

  John Ward was determined to keep up the pressure to establish the truth of what had happened to his daughter. In 1990 Scotland Yard detectives travelled to Kenya to carry out further enquiries. Witnesses were re-interviewed and the evidence re-examined. At one of the huts at the park rangers’ camp at Makari, investigators found traces of hair which matched that of the dead woman.

  The two rangers who used the hut were Peter Metui Kipeen and Jonah Tajeu Magiroi. They explained that they had found Julie after her vehicle became bogged down. There were suspicions that she had been taken hostage and probably raped. A possible scenario was that the two men panicked when they realized a massive search for her was under way, so they killed her and hacked the body to pieces to suggest an attack by wild animals.

  Kipeen and Magiroi were tried for murder at Nairobi in February 1992. In acrimonious proceedings, the police were accused of a cover-up and the Scotland Yard detectives were criticized for pressurizing witnesses. The outcome was that the two accused were acquitted.

  John Ward pursued his quest with gritty determination and, in March 1993, the Kenyan government agreed to reopen the case. In April 2004, an inquest held in Britain re-examined the case after the failure of the Kenyan authorities to establish who had murdered Julie Ward. The pathologist acting for the Kenyan government admitted signing false postmortem reports in accordance with the official line which was to treat the death as an accident and not as a murder. There were rumours that a highly placed Kenyan citizen had been involved in the young woman’s death and a cover-up was instigated to protect him.

  In 2005, Kenya once more re-opened the investigation and, in 2008, John Ward offered a cash reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the murderer. In the twenty years since his daughter’s death, he is reported to have spent a million pounds in his attempt to solve the case. He remained optimistic that new information would help find those responsible.

  Rush Hour Killing

  The driver of a sports car was killed with two bullets to the head in central London during the morning rush hour on 9 November 1970. A great deal was known about the dead man but his murderer has never been found.

  A young woman cycling to work noticed a red TR5 sports car parked at an odd angle in South Carriage Road near the Albert Hall with its engine still running. Looking through the windscreen, she saw a man slumped over the steering wheel and fetched help.

  Unfortunately, in a crime scene blunder, the police moved the car before it could be forensically examined. Consequently, the circumstances in which the driver was shot were unclear. What was certain was that he had been killed with two shots from a small calibre weapon fired at close range.

  The dead man was identified as forty-eight-year-old Andre Mizelas, a well-respected Mayfair hairdresser. His movements on that fateful morning were easily reconstructed. He left his home close to Kensington High Street at around 9 a.m., saying goodbye to Betty Warburton, his partner, and climbing into his red sports car. His route took him through Knightsbridge towards his hairdressing salon in Grafton Street. He stopped his car for some reason in South Carriage Road. As the rush hour traffic swirled around him, an unknown gunman shot him dead. No one saw the assailant nor heard the sound of gunfire.

  In partnership with his brother, Bernard, Mizelas had set up a hairdressing business, trading as Andre Bernard, with twenty salons and a distinguished list of clients. Despite his relative celebrity status, Mizelas did not mix socially with the Mayfair set. He liked boxing and often attended bouts at the Albert Hall. He was prosperous, owning a town house in Kensington and a holiday home in Portugal, happy in his relationships and, as far as anyone knew, without enemies.

  The police questioned many of his friends and business associates without establishing any leads. Reconstructing the crime proved difficult as Mizelas’s c
ar had been moved prematurely and many would-be helpers had left their fingerprints on it. The nature of the fatal shots also posed intriguing questions. It appeared that the two killing bullets had entered the driver’s left temple, travelling from front to rear. This suggested the gunman fired from inside the car and pre-supposes that Mizelas had stopped to pick up a passenger.

  Four years after the shooting, and with the killer uncaught, a theory emerged that Andre Mizelas had been killed by a hit man for some obscure reason. There was talk of a man of Mediterranean appearance wearing blue clothing and sunshades who had been seen in the vicinity of the shooting by several motorists. An identikit picture was issued but the individual was never traced. An ITV “Police Five Special” programme on the shooting favoured the theory that Mizelas knew his killer and stopped his car to pick him up.

  A development of this theory was the idea that the killer was a woman whose attentions Mizelas had scorned. As a successful hair stylist, he was acquainted with many women and those close to him said he had a quick temper. Perhaps a confrontation in the car got out of hand, ending in violence. That is as good as any other explanation of this unsolved murder.

  “Bandits, Bandits!”

  On the evening of 24 May 1957, seventy-five-year-old Countess Teresa Lubinska, alighted from a tube train at Gloucester Road on her way home from a visit to friends in Ealing. A few minutes later, she lay dying from stab wounds in the lift. Her last words were, “Bandits, bandits . . . I was on the platform and I was stabbed.” She had sustained five stab wounds, two of which penetrated her heart. She died before reaching hospital.

  The police ruled out robbery as a motive because the Countess was still wearing her jewellery. Her attackers were presumed to have escaped by way of the emergency staircase. Appeals for witnesses to come forward produced no response.