In a bombshell interview with Hoda Kotb Thursday on the <a href="https://www.today.com/news/savannah-guthrie-nancy-guthrie-moment-mom-missing-rcna265248">Today Show</a>, Savannah Guthrie took us through the nightmare she&#8217;s been living for the last 54 days since her 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, was kidnapped from her bed in the middle of the night.
Savannah said her mother was abducted in her pajamas, with no shoes, leaving behind everything. After Savannah&#8217;s sister called 911 on February 1, the Today Show host said it didn&#8217;t take long for the siblings to know something was very wrong.
&#8220;My brother, you know, he spent his career in the military and worked in intelligence and is a fighter pilot and is brilliant,&#8221; Savannah said. &#8220;He saw very clearly right away what this was. Even on the phone when I called him, he knew. And he said I think she&#8217;s been kidnapped for ransom.&#8221;
It&#8217;s a theory the family has held on to throughout the ongoing investigation. Ransom notes flooded news outlets and other avenues following Nancy&#8217;s mysterious disappearance. Savannah and her siblings, Annie and Cameron, addressed two notes that specifically demanded payment in Bitcoin.
&#8220;I believe the two notes that we responded to, I tend to believe those are real,&#8221; Savannah said.
Savannah admits she knows it is a possibility because of her public prominence. She could be the reason her mother was targeted to make a quick buck, but it&#8217;s a thought she can barely say out loud. The family remains uncertain of a motive, seven weeks in.
&#8220;It&#8217;s too much to bear to think I brought this to her bedside, that it&#8217;s because of me,&#8221; Savannah told her former co-anchor. &#8220;If it is me &#8230; I&#8217;m so sorry.&#8221;
The family was the center of scrutiny early on in the investigation, with rumors swirling that the kidnapping could have been an inside job. Savannah finally addressed those rumors, describing how it affected her already grieving family.
&#8220;It piles pain upon pain. There are no words,&#8221; Savannah said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t understand, and I&#8217;ll never understand. No one took better care of my mom than my sister and brother-in-law. No one protected my mom more than my brother. We love her. She is our shining light, our matriarch, she&#8217;s all we have.&#8221;
The rumors started to quiet down after the FBI, with the help of Google, released <a href="https://youtube.com/shorts/phuBCMSiXuo?si=mquv4c06TNPkqhil">images</a> of an armed, masked man with a backpack on Nancy&#8217;s front steps. The images are chilling, but Savannah said she&#8217;s thankful the public can see who was at her mom&#8217;s door so the focus can be on finding out who it is.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Savannah Guthrie opened up to Hoda Kotb about her reaction to seeing footage of an armed and masked person outside of mom Nancy Guthrie’s home on the night she disappeared. <a href="https://t.co/CI7WhyJfw7">https://t.co/CI7WhyJfw7</a>
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) <a href="https://twitter.com/TODAYshow/status/2037182857060257954?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 26, 2026</a></blockquote>
&#8220;I mean, it&#8217;s just absolutely terrifying, it&#8217;s totally terrifying,&#8221; Savannah said of the images. &#8220;And I can&#8217;t imagine that&#8217;s who she saw standing over her bed. I can&#8217;t. That&#8217;s too much.&#8221;
The agony and desperation for answers were painted all over the news anchor&#8217;s face. While Savannah acknowledged the tireless work investigators are doing, she is again asking for answers.
&#8220;We cannot be at peace without knowing, and someone can do the right thing. It is never too late to do the right thing, and our hearts are focused on that.&#8221;
The second part of the two-part interview airs Friday on the Today Show.

Credit: Joe Raedle/Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images

Savannah Guthrie Reveals Theory She Can’t Shake In Mother’s Kidnapping Case

'I Think She's Been Kidnapped For Ransom': Savannah Guthrie Takes Us Inside Her Living Nightmare

kidnapping

Nancy Guthrie

NBC News

News

Savannah Guthrie

True Crime

Listen to the latest episode of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/fng-ep-15?elementPosition=8&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">Finding Nancy Guthrie</a>, a special Daily Wire true crime podcast with reporter Lynden Blake on the most shocking missing-person case in America.
<iframe style="border: 0; border-radius: 4px; width: 1px; min-width: 100%; height: 2400px;" src="https://go.arena.im/embed?publisher=daily-wire&amp;event=UwKW5JE&amp;v=2">﻿</iframe>

16×9-update-nancy_720

LIVE UPDATES: Savannah Guthrie’s Family Says Answers May Lie In Overlooked Timeline Details

Ransom Plot

TODAY Show

Police body-camera footage has been released showing the moments after a former &#8220;American Idol&#8221; contestant and worship pastor allegedly killed his wife in the early morning hours of February 16 in Tipp City, Ohio, just north of Dayton.
Caleb Flynn is in jail on a $2 million bond after being charged with the murder of his wife, Ashley. The newly released video shows the Tipp City Police responding to what they believed was a burglary call that ended with Ashley being shot. Now, officials say Caleb shot his wife and staged the burglary scene.
&#8220;Is she gone?&#8221; Caleb, who once raved on &#8220;American Idol&#8221; about how much he loved his wife, asked investigators as they canvassed the crime scene.
Caleb seemed in pure shock that his wife was dead. Investigators asked Caleb if he had any weapons. He said he had guns in the house and referenced one specifically in his truck&#8217;s glove compartment.
Hours of body-cam footage were released this week as the investigation into Caleb continues. In one of the videos, Caleb is confiding in another woman, believed to be Ashley&#8217;s mother, in the yard as officers work to secure the scene.
“She told me to sleep on the couch &#8230; I shouldn&#8217;t have listened,&#8221; Caleb said.
The father of two was wailing and even throwing up at one point during the police&#8217;s initial search of the home. Caleb and Ashley&#8217;s daughters were inside during the alleged shooting.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Caleb Flynn, a former American Idol contestant, is accused of staging a burglary and killing his wife. Newly released body cam footage shows him sobbing at the scene.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CalebFlynn?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CalebFlynn</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AmericanIdol?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AmericanIdol</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CrimeNews?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CrimeNews</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BodyCamFootage?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BodyCamFootage</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CourtCase?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CourtCase</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/fyp?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#fyp</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/explorepage?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#explorepage</a> <a href="https://t.co/eNa47faFGm">pic.twitter.com/eNa47faFGm</a>
— MEAWW (@meawwofficial) <a href="https://twitter.com/meawwofficial/status/2028895741582643208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Later that morning, the footage shows Caleb agreeing to go to the police station for questioning. While sitting at the station, he asked about getting his phone back as well as where Ashley was.
&#8220;Where did you take her?&#8221; Caleb asked the detective. The detective responded by saying Ashley&#8217;s body was still at the house as investigators were &#8220;scouring&#8221; everything.
Three days after Caleb voluntarily went in for questioning, he was arrested and transported to the Miami County jail, where he remains on charges of homicide, two counts of felonious assault, and two counts of tampering with evidence.
After Caleb&#8217;s arrest, Ashley&#8217;s family released this statement: &#8220;Our hearts are shattered. Ashley brought endless light to our world and we are trying to navigate this immense loss. Our family believes this arrest was made carefully and not without serious consideration. After speaking with both local police and federal authorities, we trust the proper steps were taken and the process is being handled appropriately. We kindly ask for privacy as we work through this complex situation. We are clinging to our faith – just as Ashley did each and every day.&#8221;
Prior to Caleb&#8217;s arrest, Ashley was set to have a public celebration of life, but because of the tragic circumstances, she was laid to rest privately.
Caleb is being represented by Patrick Mulligan, who spoke out about his client&#8217;s $2 million bond.
Per <a href="https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/ashley-flynn-murder-case-husbands-attorney-questions-thoroughness-of-investigation/BLOGSCW4FBDQFB3P2A52FNFCCE/">the Dayton Daily News</a>, Mulligan said the bond was unnecessary. &#8220;It denies him the opportunity to be at the funeral for his wife, which is an unspeakable tragedy,&#8221; Mulligan said at the time.
Caleb made his first court appearance on February 20, where he told the judge, &#8220;I just want to take care of my daughters, I’m not a risk.&#8221;
Caleb&#8217;s preliminary hearing is currently scheduled for March 26.
The 39-year-old competed on Season 12 of &#8220;American Idol.&#8221; He described himself as a devoted husband, worship pastor, and Christian.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Credit: Tipp City Police Department

‘Is She Gone?’: Body-Cam Footage Reveals Husband’s Behavior Following Suspected Murder of His Wife

American Idol

Crime

Ohio

U.S.

It’s hard to remember a time before high-profile trials were broadcast on live television, and while O.J.’s may be the most memorable, it was not the first. That honor belongs to Pamela Smart, a young professional at a New Hampshire high school who had an affair with a student who would go on to murder her husband.
Pamela Wojas grew up in Miami, Florida, but her family moved to Derry, New Hampshire, while she was in the eighth grade. When it was time to go to college, Pamela moved back to Florida and attended Florida State University, where she graduated with a degree in communications. In 1986, Pamela met Greggory Smart during Christmas break while home in New Hampshire, and the two became inseparable. They officially began dating in February 1987, and Gregg eventually moved to Tallahassee to be with Pamela while she finished college.
The two were married in 1989 – Pamela was 21 and Gregg was 23 – and moved back to New Hampshire after Pamela graduated. Gregg began selling insurance at his father’s company, and Pamela took a job as a media coordinator at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, New Hampshire.
On May 1, 1990, a week before their one-year wedding anniversary, Pamela arrived home around 10:00 p.m. to find the porch light hadn’t been turned on – something Gregg always did so she wouldn’t have to walk to the condo in the dark. It was a Tuesday evening, and when Pamela opened the front door she saw Gregg laying face down on the floor leading into the dining area. She immediately ran from the home and began screaming and knocking on neighbors’ doors, saying her husband was hurt and lying on the floor.
Neighbors called 911, and soon police were at the scene. They realized Gregg was dead and found the house had been ransacked, yet Gregg still had his wallet and wedding ring. Police also found the back door open and the bulkhead doors that led to the basement unlocked. There was no sign of forced entry, yet the crime scene had the appearance of a burglary gone wrong.
Police also wondered why anyone would risk a burglary on a weeknight, when people would be home and awake.
The case received local media attention, and Gregg’s funeral was televised, with Pamela appearing distraught and relying on her friends and family.
Police looking into the murder initially believed Gregg may have been gambling and heavily in debt, which could have resulted in his murder. Pamela, however, called local reporter Bill Spencer to say Gregg didn’t have a gambling problem, and agreed to do an interview with him. During that interview, Spencer said in the documentary “Pamela Smart: An American Murder Mystery,” that while filming the segment, Pamela suggested showing the top of the couple’s wedding cake, which he thought odd. Pamela was dressed up with her makeup done perfectly, and making suggestions to the film crew about how to improve the segment. She didn’t cry, and Spencer found it strange that she didn’t ask for help solving the murder, as victims usually did.
<div id="attachment_753083" style="width: 450px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-753083" class="size-large wp-image-753083" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/GettyImages-466087128-440x576.jpg" alt="DERRY, NH - MARCH 4: Pamela Smart leaves the Derry, NH apartment where her husband was killed. The jury toured the murder scene as the trial continues. (Photo by Tom Landers/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)" width="440" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/GettyImages-466087128-440x576.jpg 440w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/GettyImages-466087128-229x300.jpg 229w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/GettyImages-466087128-768x1006.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/GettyImages-466087128.jpg 782w" sizes=" (max-width: 440px) 100vw, 440px" />Tom Landers/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</div>
Police were stumped about who could have wanted Gregg dead, but on May 14, they received a call saying Pamela planned the murder. The caller worked with a teenager named Cecelia Pierce, who attended Winnacunnet High School and interned for Pamela. The caller said Cecelia, 15, had been talking about how Pamela planned the murder.
Police questioned Cecelia, who claimed to know nothing about the murder. During that initial interview, Cecelia did say she had stayed at the Smart home one week before the murder. This detail interested police, since Pamela had provided a list of everyone who had stayed at the home for the month prior to the murder – and didn’t include Cecelia. Pamela did, however, make sure to emphasize that a water salesman had come to the house prior to Gregg’s murder.
Police again were left with little to go on, until six weeks after the murder, when Vance Lattime walked into the police station and handed over a .38 caliber pistol he believed was the murder weapon. Vance told police that his son’s friend had suggested the gun was used in the murder. At first, Vance said he didn’t believe the teen, but he checked the gun in question and realized it had been cleaned – which isn’t how he had stored it previously. Worried, he turned the gun over to investigators.
Ralph Welch, the friend of Vance’s son, was brought in for questioning and said his friend Billy Flynn had been bragging about the murder. Welch said that Flynn had pulled the trigger while his other friend, Patrick “Pete” Randall, held Gregg’s head.
Welch also provided a connection to the boys and Pamela Smart – Flynn, Vance’s son J.R. Lattime Jr., and Cecelia were all part of the high school’s Project Self-Esteem, where Pamela was a mentor. When asked why Pamela would want her husband of less than a year dead, Welch said that she wanted the life insurance on him and that he loved the dog more than her.
Flynn, Randall, and Lattime Jr. were all arrested, but because they are all juveniles, their names weren’t released to the media.
Pamela desperately tried to learn the names of the teens arrested for her husband’s murder, and learned the truth when she called Flynn’s house and spoke to his mother. Spencer, the local reporter, went to Pamela’s house after the arrests to get her response, but she barely opened the door and said she was “devastated” about the arrests. Spencer also found this odd, wondering why she would be “devastated” when the people who had murdered her husband had just been caught.
Following the arrests, police again questioned Cecelia, Pamela’s intern, about what she knew regarding the alleged murder plot. Cecelia, whose mother was present during the questioning, continued to say she didn’t know anything, but after leaving the police station, she learned on the news that the police were considering arresting another student. Believing she would be arrested, Cecelia returned to the police station the next day to say that Pamela told her that she loved Flynn and that Cecelia had walked in on the two having sex. Cecelia also said Pamela was “front and center” in the plot to kill Greg, according to recordings of her police interviews.
Cecelia agreed to wear a wire and talk to Pamela, since Pamela wouldn’t speak over the phone because she believed it was being tapped. Cecelia went to Pamela’s office and the two spoke about the crime, with Pamela suggesting Cecelia lie to police so that the boys and Pamela wouldn’t spend the rest of their lives in prison. She also suggested Cecelia would go to prison as well.
Pamela, in the “American Murder Mystery” documentary series, said that she kept hearing about developments in the case from Cecelia, and she was lying about knowing more about the murders and trying to get information from Cecelia during the recorded conversation.
After the conversation with Cecelia, police arrested Pamela at the high school and charged her for her role in the murder of her husband.
Meanwhile, the teens charged with the actual killing refused to speak to police – until the court agreed to try them as adults. No longer facing a few years in juvenile detention, but life in prison or even the death penalty, the boys started talking.
<div id="attachment_753069" style="width: 734px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-753069" class="size-large wp-image-753069" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/GettyImages-466603916-724x576.jpg" alt="EXETER, NH - MARCH 22: Pamela Smart, 23, enters the Rockingham County Superior Court courtroom in Exeter, N.H. for the verdict in her trial on March 22, 1991. Smart was convicted of being an accomplice to first-degree murder for luring her 15-year-old lover and his two teenage friends into executing her plot to kill her husband, Gregory Smart. The judge immediately sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole. She was also found guilty of murder conspiracy and witness tampering, for which she was sentenced at a later date. (Photo by Tom Landers/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)" width="724" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/GettyImages-466603916-724x576.jpg 724w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/GettyImages-466603916-300x239.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/GettyImages-466603916-768x611.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/GettyImages-466603916.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 724px) 100vw, 724px" />Tom Landers/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</div>
Flynn said Pamela planned the murder, and the other boys back up his story. The teens were all given plea deals in exchange for testifying against Pamela, in a trial that would become America’s first nationally broadcast trial.
Pamela’s defense attorney tried to get the trial moved from Derry, New Hampshire, arguing that the jury pool was tainted by local media coverage of the crime. The judge denied the attempt.
The prosecution argued that Pamela didn’t just want to divorce Gregg because her affair with a 15-year-old would be exposed, damaging her reputation. She also collected on three life insurance policies for Gregg, totaling about $140,000.
On the stand, J.R., one of the teens involved in Gregg’s killing, said Pamela had told them not to use a knife because it would result in too much blood, which could get on her white furniture. He also said he believed Flynn would pay him $500 for helping with the murder – and that the money was supposed to come from Gregg’s life insurance payout.
The defense noted that J.R. and Flynn’s cells were right next to each other, suggesting they could have corroborated their stories prior to testifying.
Flynn teared up as he was on the stand, saying that the day after he and Pamela first had sex, she mentioned murdering her husband. He testified that Pamela said she couldn’t divorce Gregg because she would get nothing. He said that he believed Pamela would stop having sex with him if he didn’t murder Gregg, and that he was a virgin before her.
He also said that Pamela told him she would leave the bulkhead open and asked Flynn to put her dog in the basement during the murder so it wouldn’t be traumatized. He said that on the night of the murder, the boys entered the home through the unlocked door, ransacked the house to make it look like a burglary, and then waited until Gregg came home to kill him.
<div id="attachment_753073" style="width: 467px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-753073" class="size-large wp-image-753073" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/GettyImages-1290401186-457x576.jpg" alt="(3/12/91) Pamela Smart murder trial - William Flynn stares at the gun he used to shoot and kill Gregg Smart as AGA Paul Maggitti holds it in front of him for identification. Staff photo by Jim Mahoney (Photo by /MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images)" width="457" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/GettyImages-1290401186-457x576.jpg 457w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/GettyImages-1290401186-238x300.jpg 238w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/GettyImages-1290401186-768x969.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/GettyImages-1290401186.jpg 812w" sizes=" (max-width: 457px) 100vw, 457px" />MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images</div>
Pamela took the stand in her own defense, denying the boys’ allegations and saying she was susceptible to the affair with the teenage boy because Gregg had recently confessed he had cheated on her. She said she broke off the affair with Flynn because she loved Gregg and wanted to make the marriage work, and suggested Flynn and his friends killed Gregg out of jealousy and revenge. She never cried on the stand.
The jury was not sequestered during the trial, and Pamela’s defense said that newspapers were found in the jury room, suggesting their conviction could have been tainted.
The jury found Pamela Smart guilty on all counts, and she was sentenced to life in prison without parole. The judge denied the defense’s request for a new trial based on jury bias, and Pamela exhausted all of her legal appeals.
While Flynn and the other boys who committed the actual murder have all been released from prison, Pamela remains behind bars. She’s also requested that her sentence be reduced, but New Hampshire’s Executive Council denied her request and the state Supreme Court <a href="https://apnews.com/article/pamela-smart-teenage-lover-husband-killed-sentence-3f078128d8cb216ee1f4dcd8634eeac2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dismissed</a> her petition.
More than 34 years after the murder of her husband, Pamela <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pamela-smart-finally-sort-of-takes-responsibility-for-husbands-murder-34-years-later" target="_blank" rel="noopener">acknowledged</a> her own responsibility in Gregg’s murder, but didn’t admit to plotting his death and never mentioned his name. As recently as 2018, in the “American Murder Mystery” documentary, Smart denied any involvement in her husband’s death.
<div id="attachment_753075" style="width: 553px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-753075" class="size-full wp-image-753075" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/74060991007-pamelasmart-2024.webp" alt="Pamela Smart. AP photo. Oxygen True Crime." width="543" height="572" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/74060991007-pamelasmart-2024.webp 543w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/74060991007-pamelasmart-2024-285x300.webp 285w" sizes=" (max-width: 543px) 100vw, 543px" />AP photo/Oxygen True Crime.</div>

Pamela Smart Being Sworn In

Remembering The Pamela Smart Case: America’s First Televised Murder Trial

Murder

New Hampshire

Opinion

Prison

Readers Pass

Herb Baumeister has never been convicted of any murders, since he committed suicide before he could be arrested, but the number of human remains found on his property could make him one of America’s most prolific serial killers.
Baumeister was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on April 7, 1947. Around the time he became an adolescent, he began showing antisocial behavior and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and antisocial personality disorder, but was never treated for either.
In 1971, he married Julie Saiter and the couple had three children. In May 1988, they purchased a $1 million estate called Fox Hollow Farm, the same year Baumeister founded a successful thrift-store chain in Indianapolis.
Six years after purchasing the farm property, Baumeister’s 13-year-old son Erich brought home a human skull, which he said he had found in the woods on the property, according to a 1996 <a href="https://people.com/archive/while-julie-was-away-vol-46-no-26/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">article</a> from People Magazine. Baumeister told Julie that the bones were from a medical school skeleton that once belonged to his late father, a doctor, but didn’t explain what they were doing on the couple’s property. Days later, the bones were gone, and Julie simply assumed that an animal had taken them.
Julie would later learn that during the summers, when she was away with the couple’s three children, Baumeister would frequent Indianapolis gay bars – from which multiple men would disappear. It started in June 1980, when the body of a 15-year-old boy was found – the first connected to an American serial killer at the time known only as the I-70 Strangler. The boy, Michael Petree, was a male prostitute who spent time at Indianapolis gay bars – the same ones Baumeister would go to.
Ten more bodies wouldn&#8217;t be found until August 1991. Police believed that by then, Baumeister was using Fox Hollow Farm to dispose of the bodies.
<div id="attachment_750993" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-750993" class="size-large wp-image-750993" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/MixCollage-14-Jun-2024-01-42-PM-2783-864x576.jpg" alt="Herb Baumeister's former home: Fox Hollow Farms, Indiana. Screenshot: YouTube." width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/MixCollage-14-Jun-2024-01-42-PM-2783-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/MixCollage-14-Jun-2024-01-42-PM-2783-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/MixCollage-14-Jun-2024-01-42-PM-2783-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/MixCollage-14-Jun-2024-01-42-PM-2783-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/MixCollage-14-Jun-2024-01-42-PM-2783-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/MixCollage-14-Jun-2024-01-42-PM-2783-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/MixCollage-14-Jun-2024-01-42-PM-2783-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Screenshot: YouTube.</div>
In the early 1990s, police were investigating multiple gay men reported missing – who were all of a similar age, height, and weight. In 1994, a man named Tony Harris contacted the Marion County Sheriff’s Department to say he believed a man who frequented the gay bars – who called himself “Brian Smart” – had likely killed his friend Roger Goodlet. Harris based this claim in Smart’s odd interest in Goodlet’s missing person case and his own near-death experience with Smart sometime earlier.
Smart was identified as Baumeister, and investigators asked to search the Fox Hollow home and property. Baumeister and Julie refused the search, but in 1996, the couple had divorced, and Julie had become fearful of her husband’s behavior, so she allowed the search to move forward.
The first search of the Baumeister property turned up the remains of eleven men, and a warrant was issued for Baumeister’s arrest. One of those victims is Roger Goodlet, whose connection to Tony Harris led to police identifying Baumeister as a potential killer.
Before police could arrest him, however, Baumeister fled to Ontario, Canada, and shot himself in the head, leaving behind a suicide note that mentioned his broken marriage and failing business but not the remains. 
On December 4, 2022, a new search of Baumeister’s old farm was conducted, and a new bone was found, along with 20 locations identified as possibly concealing more human remains, WRTV <a href="https://www.wrtv.com/news/local-news/crime/bone-found-during-sunday-search-of-herbert-baumeister-property" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> at the time.
In May 2024, another search was conducted, and authorities recovered more than 10,000 bone fragments scattered across the 18-acre property, the Indy Star <a href="https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2024/06/05/fox-hollow-farms-victims-identified-alleged-indiana-serial-killer-herbert-baumeister-wesffield/72369859007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. 
The remains are being analyzed, Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison said, adding that just a tiny fraction of those bone fragments have been identified so far.
&#8220;We have roughly 10,000 bone fragments, and my guess is that we haven&#8217;t gone through 160 of those yet,&#8221; he said, according to the Star. &#8220;We&#8217;ve got a lot of work in front of us, but every day is a step forward.&#8221;
So far, authorities have identified at least 13 unique DNA profiles from remains found on Baumeister’s property, and nine of those have been identified as gay men who went missing in the 1990s. Four other sets of remains have not been identified yet. This number includes those found on the property in the 1996 search.
Two years ago, authorities asked family members whose loved ones went missing in the mid-1980s to mid-1990s to submit DNA samples to be compared to remains found on Baumeister’s property.
In total, that means Baumeister is currently suspected of killing at least 25 people (11 as the I-70 Strangler, and 13 more who were found on his property, plus an additional murder Baumeister was linked to posthumously). With 10,000 bone fragments to identify, that number could increase exponentially.
The world may never know the extent of Baumeister’s crime, and he will never be held accountable for his alleged actions, since he has been dead for 30 years. And because of that, he will always be a “suspected” serial killer.

Herb Baumeister and his home Fox Hollow Farms in Indiana. Wikipedia. Screenshot: YouTube.

Herb Baumeister: One Of America’s Most Prolific Suspected Serial Killers

Indiana

Serial Killers

The last time anyone spoke to Ana Maria Knezevich Henao she seemed happy and “totally normal,” but a day later, she disappeared into thin air.
A couple months later, Ana’s estranged husband, David Knezevich, was arrested at the Miami airport and charged with kidnapping, People Magazine <a href="https://people.com/ana-knezevich-henao-missing-spain-all-about-case-accusations-husband-8650265" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. He has not been charged with her murder, and she is still nowhere to be found.
Ana, who was born in Colombia, left her home in Florida and traveled to Madrid, Spain, on December 27, 2023, just after she separated from her husband, a Serbian immigrant whom she had been married to for 13 years. The couple owned a tech company together, and splitting up the company became the crux of their contentious divorce.
Ana’s brother, Felibe, told People that the couple were “going through a nasty divorce and there is a substantial amount of money on the line to be split up between the two and Knezevich is not happy about it.&#8221;
Her best friend, Sanna Rameau, told People that Ana “really liked the culture in that city and the atmosphere, and she said she wanted to go and live there.” In Spain, Ana wanted to create a non-profit that would help “women that have been abused or been in a bad situation.”
<div id="attachment_741717" style="width: 441px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-741717" class="size-full wp-image-741717" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/Screenshot-2024-05-24-at-10.58.20%E2%80%AFAM-2.png" alt="Screenshot: YouTube. WPLG Local 10." width="431" height="345" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/Screenshot-2024-05-24-at-10.58.20%E2%80%AFAM-2.png 431w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/Screenshot-2024-05-24-at-10.58.20%E2%80%AFAM-2-300x240.png 300w" sizes=" (max-width: 431px) 100vw, 431px" />Screenshot: YouTube. WPLG Local 10.</div>
In January 2024, Rameau was able to meet with Ana in Austria, and the two made plans to get together in Madrid on February 8. Rameau told the outlet that she spoke to Ana every day, but as their meeting in Spain approached, Ana disappeared.
Rameau knew something was wrong when she received troubling text messages from Ana’s phone on February 3.
“I met someone wonderful,” one message said, <a href="https://people.com/ana-knezevich-henao-missing-husband-texts-made-him-suspect-8647654" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to People</a>. “He has a summer house about 2h [two hours] from Madrid. We are going there now and I will spend a few days there. There is barely any signal though. I’ll call you when I come back. Kisses.”
Rameau told the outlet that she “was very confused” by the texts.
“I was like, ‘What are you talking about? What is going on? This is not safe. Share your location. Something is wrong,&#8217;” she said.
But Ana stopped responding.
Rameau contacted a friend of Ana in Madrid and also called the authorities.
The last confirmed contact with Ana was on the evening of February 2, Rameau told the outlet, saying her friend was “just goofing around” and acted “totally normal.”
Security cameras at her apartment building captured footage of Ana entering her home around 2:30 p.m. Around 9:27 p.m. that same day, the cameras captured a man wearing a helmet enter the building and cover a surveillance camera lens with spray paint. Police have said the man resembled Knezevich.
A federal complaint obtained by People revealed that the man was also seen &#8220;fastening a piece of duct tape to the lock of the building entrance to prevent the lock from engaging to allow subsequent entry.&#8221;
Around 10:30 p.m., the man was seen leaving the building with what appeared to be a suitcase.
<div id="attachment_741725" style="width: 249px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-741725" class="wp-image-741725 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/Screenshot-2024-05-24-at-10.57.30%E2%80%AFAM-2-copy.png" alt="Screenshot: YouTube. WPLG Local 10. David Knezevich" width="239" height="295" />Screenshot: YouTube. WPLG Local 10.</div>
When Spanish police searched Ana’s apartment after she was reported missing, they noted that her cell phone, laptop, and chargers were all missing.
Police also tracked down the shop that sold the brand of spray paint used by the man in the surveillance footage. The shop’s security cameras “depicted an individual who appeared to be Knezevich purchasing the spray paint along with two rolls of duct tape,” on February 2, according to the complaint against Knezevich.
Investigators working on Ana’s disappearance also discovered Knezevich contacted a Colombian woman online in October 2023 who said he asked her to translate a message into “perfect Colombian,” People reported. 
She claimed Knezevich told her he needed the translation for his friend in Serbia “who is writing a script about a Colombian character.”
The woman said the message Knezevich asked her to translate was the same one that Ana’s friend Rameau received the day after Ana disappeared, about meeting a man and spending days with him in a place with spotty cell service. Knezevich also allegedly asked her to translate another message that read: “yesterday after therapy I needed a walk and he approached me on the street! Amazing connection. Like I never had before.”
Authorities contend that Knezevich flew from Miami to Istanbul on January 27 and then rented a car in Serbia on January 29 before driving to Spain to allegedly kidnap his estranged wife, People reported. The owner of the rental car company reportedly told authorities that Knezevich returned the vehicle with tinted windows and different frames for the license plate.
On April 24, nearly three months after Ana disappeared, one of Knezevich’s employees told police that he had asked her to “impersonate” Ana to open a new bank account. The employee said Knezevich provided her with Ana’s social security number to use as identification. When the employee said she was uncomfortable doing so because Ana was missing, Knezevich allegedly told her that it “needed to be done” in order to pay all the employees. Knezevich allegedly added that “I cannot call with my voice because I sound like a guy.”
Knezevich maintains his innocence, with his attorney claiming his client was in Serbia when Ana disappeared, some 1,600 miles away, WSVN <a href="https://wsvn.com/news/local/broward/attorney-husband-denies-any-involvement-in-disappearance-of-south-florida-woman-in-spain/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
<div id="attachment_741705" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-741705" class="size-large wp-image-741705" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/GettyImages-2151539670-864x576.jpg" alt="Aura Ines Nino de Henao is hugged by her son, Felipe Henao, as she leaves a news conference with Felipe and her son, Diego Henao, left, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Her daughter, Ana Henao Knezevich, was reported missing while in Spain in February. Her husband was arrested by the FBI at Miami International Airport this past weekend and charged with kidnapping in connection with her disappearance. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/GettyImages-2151539670-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/GettyImages-2151539670-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/GettyImages-2151539670-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/GettyImages-2151539670.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images</div>
Even with Knezevich’s arrest, Ana’s friends and family still wonder where she is.
“Nothing of this makes sense to me,” Rameau told People. “It&#8217;s devastating. We just want to know where she is.&#8221;
&#8220;I am not going to stop until justice has been served,&#8221; she added. &#8220;I miss her every minute. I just dream that she would come back. She was a sweetheart.”
Ana’s younger brother Felipe still hopes his sister can be found.
“If anybody out there has any information about her whereabouts, we still have hope that we can find where my sister is,” he said during a press conference on May 8, just days after Knezevich was arrested, WSVN <a href="about:blank">reported</a>. “If she’s out there, somewhere, I just want to tell her we all love her, we miss her, we support her, we’re her voice.”

US-NEWS-FLA-MISSING-WOMAN-FAMILY-FL

She Disappeared In Spain Amid A Nasty Divorce. Her Husband Has Been Charged With Kidnapping, But Where Is Ana Knezevich Henao?

Florida

Marriage

Serbia

Spain

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California

California Supreme Court

Court

Death Penalty

Innocence Project

Scott Peterson

Tatyana Remley was a glamorous would-be-heiress until she attempted to hire a hitman to murder her husband of 12 years, Mark Remley. Now, the beautiful but dangerous woman will spend the next three years and eight months behind bars.
When Tatyana was a young girl, her parents moved the family to Valley Center, California, a small town in San Diego County. Tatyana was in the fourth grade, but her parents didn’t enroll her in school, and for the next 10 years, allegedly kept their daughter from experiencing the world outside her home.
Her own mother, Vera, admitted to Tatyana’s troubled upbringing during a custody battle in 2009 between Tatyana and her first husband, Kenneth Woolcott.
“My husband … wanted to do home school, whatever, once we came to California,” Vera said during the battle, according to documents <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/09/14/tatyana-remley-was-molested-as-child-only-had-4th-grade-education-docs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reviewed</a> by the New York Post. “We had a lot of difficulties with [Tatyana’s father].”
“If I could go back, I would undo everything, and see to it that she be in school … I’m very sorry, because I believe in school,” Vera added.
In his own deposition, Woolcott, a successful lawyer and businessman, claimed that Tatyana “was kept isolated/captive on rural property in Valley Center, without school, social activities and interaction with her community” and that the religious views of her parents included “the rejection of traditional medicine and medical care professionals.”
“She also was denied access to childhood friends out of the parents’ fear any such friends would lead to discovery of her captivity,” Woolcott added. “Essentially, Tatyana was captive for about 10 years (9 – 20 years old) with little, if any, contact with the outside world, education, social interaction or structure.”
Woolcott also said he helped get Tatyana her GED so she could work, but she refused to get a job.
Woolcott was 43 when he married Tatyana, who was only 23 at the time. Tatyana gave birth to a son, but the couple divorced 11 months after their wedding. The custody battle lasted nearly a decade before a judge determined Woolcott was more fit to care for the couple’s son, the Post reported.
During that decade, Tatyana gave birth to a daughter and had several failed engagements. Her former friends <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/09/08/sex-crazed-tatyana-remley-targeted-rich-men-at-polo-club-sources/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> the Post that Tatyana sought out “rich men” who could give her a life of luxury.
She met Mark Remley in a Starbucks in March 2011 and began working together on what would become an epic failure: Valitar.
<div id="attachment_682491" style="width: 877px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-682491" class="size-large wp-image-682491" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/web15994851_1855734504711368_4143216704218845957_o-867x576.webp" alt="Mark Remley and Tatyana Remley. Credit: Facebook/Tatyana Remley" width="867" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/web15994851_1855734504711368_4143216704218845957_o-867x576.webp 867w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/web15994851_1855734504711368_4143216704218845957_o-300x199.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/web15994851_1855734504711368_4143216704218845957_o-768x510.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/web15994851_1855734504711368_4143216704218845957_o.webp 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 867px) 100vw, 867px" />Mark Remley and Tatyana Remley. Credit: Facebook/Tatyana Remley</div>
Tatyana described Valitar as “Cirque du Soleil with horses,” to a reporter in 2012, The San Diego Union-Tribune <a href="https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-horse-opera-decline-fall-valitar-2013jan19-story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> at the time. The show was to rival Cavalia, which included horses and acrobatics and was created by a founder of Cirque du Soleil, according to Erik Martonovich, a former Cavalia cast member hired to direct Valitar.
“They had no clue what they were doing — about anything,” he told the Union-Tribune about the Remleys. “They weren’t horse people and they weren’t show people.”
Ads for the show featured Tatyana prominently, but she had little riding experience and wasn’t really part of the actual show.
“She didn’t do any of the stunts,” Roza Tabasa, the hospitality manager for the show who saw some of its performances, told the outlet. “But in the end, when the whole cast lined up and everybody is applauding, this blonde lady comes down the center, the other cast members part for her — and there’s silence. People are thinking, ‘Who’s she? Oh, it’s the lady in the poster.’”
<div id="attachment_682493" style="width: 787px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-682493" class="size-large wp-image-682493" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/download-777x576.webp" alt="Credit: Howard Lipin, The San Diego Union-Tribune" width="777" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/download-777x576.webp 777w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/download-300x223.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/download-768x570.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/download.webp 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 777px) 100vw, 777px" />Credit: Howard Lipin, The San Diego Union-Tribune</div>
The Remleys seemed to throw money around haphazardly, spending lavishly on salaries and equipment but then refusing to spend $1,500 to save a horse’s life. On another occasion, Tatyana reportedly went on a shopping spree at a tack shop and purchased items the show already had.
Weeks before the show’s opening performance, the Remleys stopped sending checks to vendors and employees, the Union-Tribune reported. Martonovich was fired after a horse broke its leg during practice, but he believes other factors led to his firing.
“I’m pretty sure at that point, it was about Tatyana. She didn’t want me around because I didn’t want her,” he told the outlet.
After Martonovich was fired, about 18 of the 25 performers quit, and the show could no longer use acts that Martonovich and his production company owned. Former Cavalia performer Sylvia Zerbini was hired to completely rewrite the show – in two months.
When Valitar opened, reviews found it underwhelming when compared to Cavalia. The first weekend failed to sell out seats, and only ran for five days before filing for bankruptcy.
Mark and Tatyana, however, reconciled their marriage and remained together for another decade, continuing their passion for money, horses, drugs, and orgies, the Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/09/13/inside-the-twisted-marriage-of-tatyana-remley-equestrian-accused-of-murder-plot/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. The couple separated and reconciled multiple times during that period, NBC San Diego <a href="https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/north-county-woman-behind-failed-horse-themed-show-sentenced-in-murder-for-hire-attempt/3391158/">reported</a>.
The final separation came in early 2023, when Tatyana filed for divorce and accused Mark of abuse, including claims that he pointed a gun at her head and chased her with a knife. She also claimed that he watched as one of his friends raped her. Mark has denied all accusations.
Tatyana also demanded $15,000 a month in spousal support to keep up her lavish lifestyle, the Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12917783/equestrian-Tatyana-Remley-sentenced-hitman-husband-mark-remley.html">reported</a>.
In the summer of 2023, Mark learned that Tatyana had offered a mutual friend $2 million to murder him, the Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/09/06/tatyana-remley-said-she-was-raped-by-pal-of-husband-she-tried-to-kill/">reported</a>. He told police and undercover detectives conducted a sting operation to catch her in the act. She was arrested on August 2 and charged with trying to hire a hitman to kill her husband.
In late December, Tatyana pleaded guilty to solicitation to commit murder and was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison, NBC reported.

Photo credit: Erik Martonovich

The Twisted World Of Tatyana Remley: Money, Horses, And Murder-For-Hire

Horse

San Diego

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/celebrities" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ian Ziering</a> played the swashbuckling hero in six “Sharknado” romps.
The “90210” alum saved the day in the seriously silly saga. But he showed some real-world bravery recently during an encounter with a local mini bike gang.
It’s hardly the first time an actor took his heroism to the streets, but Ziering’s actions drew praise from his fellow “90210” stars and those who suggest action heroes can’t bring some Hollywood swagger to their private lives.
Ziering, driving in Los Angeles with his 12-year-old daughter on New Year’s Eve, was <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/01/03/entertainment/ian-ziering-throws-first-punch-in-biker-fight-in-new-video/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">boxed in by an aggressive driver</a> near Hollywood Blvd. Several members of a local mini bike gang surrounded stepped in front of the actor’s car to make sure he couldn’t drive away.
Ziering says he got out of his car to assess any damage, and, according to reports, threw the first punch at the bikers to clear space for him to drive away safely. The ensuing street brawl was captured <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXFNjyFsElQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on video</a> with Ziering managing to escape. He was later seen comforting his frightened daughter.
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Another on-screen action star, Benedict Cumberbatch, similarly <a href="https://deadline.com/2018/06/sherlock-holmes-star-benedict-cumberbatch-has-a-real-life-battle-against-evil-doers-1202402451/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">did the right thing</a> during a 2018 altercation. The man known to millions as Doctor Strange saw a cyclist get clubbed by a gang of thugs from his seat in an Uber. Cumberbatch and his wife told the driver to stop the car while he got out to help the injured man.
The actor grabbed one of the muggers before the crook and his fellow thugs ran off.
Crisis averted, and Cumberbatch didn’t need a script to know how to save the day. The Uber driver helped, too, but he credited the British star for doing most of the heavy lifting.
<div id="attachment_675755" style="width: 779px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-675755" class="size-large wp-image-675755" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-975074496-769x576.jpg" alt="LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 15: Benedict Cumberbatch and wife Sophie Hunter arrive at Westminster Abbey ahead of Professor Stephen Hawking's memorial service on June 15, 2018 in London, England. The world renowned physicist and author of A Brief History of Time, died early in the morning of 14 March 2018, at the age of 76. Professor Hawking's ashes will be laid to rest close to Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin in the nave of Westminster Abbey. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)" width="769" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-975074496-769x576.jpg 769w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-975074496-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-975074496-768x575.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-975074496.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 769px) 100vw, 769px" />Dan Kitwood/Getty Images</div>
“Benedict was courageous, brave and selfless. If he hadn’t stepped in, the cyclist could have been seriously injured. Here was Sherlock Holmes fighting off four attackers just round the corner from Baker Street.”
Cumberbatch later <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/benedict-cumberbatch-on-foolhardy-decision-to-step-in-and-help-deliveroo-driver-11508227" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called his actions “foolhardy”</a> and played down any talk of his heroism.
Actor Dev Patel is relatively new on the scene, and he’s hardly stereotyped as an action hero. He tends to play more cerebral figures, with his role in “The Green Knight” being an exception.
<div id="attachment_675753" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-675753" class="size-large wp-image-675753" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-1752357857-864x576.jpg" alt="NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 19: Dev Patel attends &quot;To Kill A Tiger&quot; New York premiere at Metrograph on October 19, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-1752357857-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-1752357857-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-1752357857-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-1752357857.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Arturo Holmes/Getty Images</div>
Still, the “Slumdog Millionaire” star <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-62407444">summoned his inner action hero</a> in 2022 to stop a knife fight in South Australia from getting ugly. A verbal confrontation between a man and a woman got ugly, and the man suffered a stab wound as the matter intensified. Patel and some friends intervened, making sure the situation didn’t get significantly worse and staying with the injured man until help could arrive.
Star of the &#8220;Machete&#8221; franchise, Danny Trejo, survived his troubled youth and time spent behind bars to become a go-to character actor in action movies.
In 2019, <a href="https://abc7.com/danny-trejo-saves-baby-rescues-child-sylmar-car-accident/5451006/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Trejo spotted an overturned car</a> in the Sylmar suburb of Los Angeles. He and a bystander noticed a special-needs child trapped in the vehicle and got to work. The actor struggled to unbuckle the child’s safety belt, but the bystander approached the car from a different angle and unlatched the belt.
Trejo reached in, grabbed the child and safely removed him from the car. All the while he reassured the frightened lad that help was on the way.
&#8220;He was panicked. I said OK, we have to use our superpowers. So he screamed &#8216;superpowers&#8217; and we started yelling &#8216;superpowers,&#8221; I said do this, with the muscles. He said &#8216;muscles.'&#8221;
<iframe loading="lazy" src="https://abc7.com/video/embed/?pid=5451350" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Helping others is an <a href="https://csunshinetoday.csun.edu/community/actor-danny-trejo-from-san-quentin-to-a-life-helping-others/">off-screen passion</a>, he told CSUN Today.
“My whole life is dedicated to helping other people. That’s how I get through the day.”
Sean Penn’s verbal activism may infuriate some, but he’s still the star you want around in times of trouble.
Following Hurricane Katrina, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/sep/07/hurricanekatrina.usa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Penn personally rescued several people</a> stranded by the flooded waters. He shared cash with the grateful residents and even took some to a local hospital. The star did get some negative blowback from the mission, though, since he had a personal photographer on the scene to capture his heroism.
<div id="attachment_675727" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-675727" class="size-large wp-image-675727" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-1455629536-864x576.jpg" alt="BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 10: 80th Annual GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS -- Pictured: Sean Penn speaks onstage at the 80th Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 10, 2023 in Beverly Hills, California. -- (Photo by Rich Polk/NBC via Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-1455629536-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-1455629536-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-1455629536-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-1455629536.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Rich Polk/NBC via Getty Images</div>
The “Mystic River” star later rallied, along with his daughter Dylan, to <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2010/02/26/sean-penn-lifesaving-hero-in-haiti/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rescue a woman and child</a> trapped under rubble following the 2010 Haitian earthquake which <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-fg-sean-penn-haiti-20160110-story.html">killed more than 300,000 people.</a>
The actor had relocated to Haiti following the natural disaster and created a relief organization to aid the embattled nation. 
A witness to the rescue said Penn pulled the injured duo free from the wreckage and drove them to a nearby hospital camp. He followed through on his heroism, staying with them until doctors treated them for their injuries.
Tom Cruise plays the ultimate action hero in the “Top Gun” and “Mission: Impossible” franchises. He takes the role seriously, putting himself at risk time and time again to help strangers.
He saved the day <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2006/08/15/help-me-tom-cruise/">three times in 1996 alone</a>. He helped a hit-and-run victim get to the hospital and even picked up her emergency room tab.
Later that year, he and then-wife Nicole Kidman helped rescue passengers of a fiery boat, sending their skiff over to bring them aboard their vessel.
He capped 1996 spotting two boys being crushed against barricades set up during the British premiere of his film “Mission: Impossible.” The actor rushed in, getting the boys to safety and earning praise from one of the lad’s parents.
<div id="attachment_675725" style="width: 912px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-675725" class="size-large wp-image-675725" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-1484768301-902x576.jpg" alt="Married actors Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise promoting their film, Stanley Kubrick's 'Eyes Wide Shut' at the Venice International Film Festival, Lido, 3 September 1999. (Phot by Leonardo Cendamo/Getty Images)" width="902" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-1484768301-902x576.jpg 902w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-1484768301-300x192.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-1484768301-768x491.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/01/GettyImages-1484768301.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 902px) 100vw, 902px" />Leonardo Cendamo/Getty Images</div>
Two years later, he <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-10-02-9810020077-story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spotted a jewelry theft in progress</a> while in London to shoot “Eyes Wide Shut.” The actor chased the thugs away, sparing the victim in the process. This time, he had his personal bodyguards with him to help in his efforts.
Actors often stumble when bereft of a script or direction. A few, however, proved that years of on-screen heroism gave them the courage to do the right thing away from a Hollywood set.

KIIS FM’s iHeartRadio Jingle Ball 2023 Presented By Capital One – Arrivals

When Actors Display Real-World Bravery Without A Script

actors

Hollywood

Violent Crime

Kathleen Folbigg’s life began with tragedy.
At just 18-months-old, Kathleen’s father murdered her mother and was arrested the next day.
Kathleen became a ward of the state and placed into foster care. At the age of three, she was placed in the Bidura House, an orphanage in New South Wales, Australia. After just two months in the orphanage, she was placed into permanent foster care, where she remained until she was a young adult.
She dropped out of school at the age of 15, and five years later married Craig Folbigg, a 25-year-old steel worker, <a href="https://www.marieclaire.com.au/latest-news/is-this-our-worst-serial-killer-or-is-she-innocent/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to Marie Claire</a>.
Kathleen became pregnant in 1988 and gave birth to the couple’s first child, Caleb, on February 1, 1989. Caleb was diagnosed with laryngomalacia, a condition where the soft cartilage of the upper larynx collapses inward when a child breathes in. This causes airway obstruction but is something children grow out of. Caleb’s breathing was noisy due to the condition, but he was otherwise healthy.
On February 20, just 19 days after Caleb was born, he died in his sleep in a room next to Kathleen and Craig’s. His death was blamed on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), a condition most knew little about in the late 80s and 90s.
Still grieving, Kathleen became pregnant again later that year, giving birth to son Patrick on June 3, 1990. Craig decided to stay home for three months after Patrick was born in order to help Kathleen care for the baby. On October 18, Craig woke up to hear his wife screaming as she stood by Patrick’s bed.
Patrick wasn’t breathing, so Craig tried to revive him using CPR. The couple called an ambulance and Patrick was rushed to the hospital, where he was saved. He began to improve at the hospital, but suddenly had a seizure and was diagnosed with epilepsy and cortical blindness. On February 13, 1991, tragedy again struck the Folbigg household when Patrick died as the result of seizures. Kathleen called Craig to tell him that Patrick had died, <a href="https://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/nsw/NSWCCA/2007/128.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> telling her husband “It’s happened again!”
Craig and Kathleen moved to Thornton, New South Wales, to start over, and more than a year after Patrick’s death, baby Sarah was born on October 14, 1992. When she was just 10 months old, Craig was awakened once again by his wife’s screams as she stood with their infant child. Just 20 minutes earlier, Craig had awoken to notice Kathleen and the baby weren’t in the room they all shared. He fell back asleep, unconcerned, only to be woken again by Kathleen’s screams.
Craig saw Sarah laid out in her bed and picked her up. She was warm but not breathing, so Craig attempted CPR, to no avail. Emergency responders also failed to resuscitate the child.
Three deaths. Three tragedies, which put stress on the Folbiggs’ marriage. They separated and reconciled multiple times, according to Marie Claire, but came back together for a final time in 1996.
The couple moved to Singleton, New South Wales, that year, and welcomed baby girl Laura on August 7, 1997. Laura was the longest surviving child of Craig and Kathleen, dying at 19 months old on February 27, 1999.
The relationship deteriorated in 1999 once again and the couple separated for good. During this time, Craig found one of Kathleen’s journals in a bedside drawer and began to doubt the children’s deaths were natural. He turned the diary over to the police, who were also suspicious that four children in the same family could all die of natural causes.
Kathleen was arrested in 2001, and charged with the murder of her four babies. Without any direct evidence to prove she murdered her children, prosecutors relied on juror’s disbelief that the four children could all die of natural causes, as well as cherry-picked passages from Kathleen’s diary.
<div id="attachment_669227" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-669227" class="size-large wp-image-669227" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-539496107-384x576.jpg" alt="(AUSTRALIA OUT) Kathleen Folbigg leaving Maitland Court after being refused bail, 22 March 2004. SHD Picture by ANITA JONES (Photo by Fairfax Media via Getty Images via Getty Images)" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-539496107-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-539496107-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-539496107.jpg 683w" sizes=" (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" />SHD Picture by ANITA JONES. Photo by Fairfax Media via Getty Images</div>
For instance, when Patrick, the second child, was born, Kathleen wrote in her diary: “I had mixed feelings this day, wether [sic] or not I was going to cope as a mother or wether [sic] I was going to get stressed out like I did last time.”
And when Kathleen became pregnant with Laura, she worried that it: “wasn’t just a determination on my behalf to get it right and not be defeated by me total inadequate feelings about myself. To prove that there is nothing wrong with me, if other women can do it so can I.”
Three of the deaths were attributed to natural causes – Caleb and Sarah to SIDS, and Patrick to asphyxia from a seizure – but a coroner said that Laura was too old to die from SIDS at 19 months old.
The defense countered that Laura’s death could be attributed to myocarditis, which is caused by inflammation of the heart muscle. Defense attorneys also produced diary entries that showed Kathleen loved and cared for her babies, and argued that the prosecution’s diary entries could be explained by grief. Emergency responders testified that Kathleen appeared genuinely distraught each time one of her children died.
In April 2003, Kathleen was convicted of murdering her four children and sentenced to 40 years in prison, with the possibility of parole after 30 years. After an appeal in 2005, her sentence was reduced to 30 years in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
<div id="attachment_669223" style="width: 865px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-669223" class="size-large wp-image-669223" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-539525707-855x576.jpg" alt="(AUSTRALIA OUT) Craig Folbigg leaves Darlinghurst Court with his fiance Helen, Sydney, 20 May 2003. SMH Picture by PETER MORRIS (Photo by Fairfax Media via Getty Images/Fairfax Media via Getty Images via Getty Images)" width="855" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-539525707-855x576.jpg 855w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-539525707-300x202.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-539525707-768x518.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/GettyImages-539525707.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 855px) 100vw, 855px" />Fairfax Media via Getty Images</div>
In 2011, Australian legal academic Emma Cunliffe published the book “Murder Medicine and Motherhood,” alleging that Kathleen had been wrongly convicted and that the medical evidence used to convict her was misleading. Cunliffe also argued that Kathleen’s diary entries were unfairly used against her. 
In 2013, a team of lawyers looked into Kathleen’s case. Stephen Cordner, a forensic pathologist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, also wrote <a href="https://www.folbigginquiry.justice.nsw.gov.au/Documents/Exhibit%20C%20-%20Report%20of%20Stephen%20Cordner%20undated%20and%20report%20of%20Michael%20Pollanen%20dated%201%20June%202015.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a 121-page report</a> detailing how each child likely died of natural causes. He argued that Sarah’s death was a textbook example of SIDS, Patrick died of a seizure, Caleb’s death was due to his laryngomalacia, and Laura’s death was caused by myocarditis.
In 2015, Kathleen’s legal team petitioned the attorney general’s office to take another look at her case. It wasn’t until 2018 that New South Wales Attorney-General Mark Speakman announced his office would look into Kathleen’s convictions.
Dr. Carola Garcia de Vinuesa, an immunologist, examined Kathleen’s DNA as well as that of her deceased children, finding a genetic mutation that could cause heart issues leading to death. But <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/kathleen-folbigg-inquiry-evidence-reinforces-her-guilt-former-chief-judge-concludes-20190722-p529oe.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a report</a> released in 2019 included a statement from former chief judge of the District Court Reginald Blanch, who said he found no reason to doubt Kathleen’s convictions.
Kathleen again appealed, but that appeal was rejected in 2021. In 2022, Speakman announced a second inquiry into Kathleen’s convictions. This inquiry led to Kathleen being released from prison in June 2023 and her convictions being overturned in December, CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/14/australia/australia-folbigg-murder-convictions-quashed-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. In addition to her convictions being overturned, Kathleen’s lawyers have called for “substantial” compensation for her time spent behind bars.
“The time this has taken in seeing today’s result has cost many people a lot,” Kathleen said after her convictions were overturned. “I hoped and prayed that one day I would be able to stand here with my name cleared.”
<div id="attachment_669233" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-669233" class="wp-image-669233 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/1Screenshot-2023-12-18-at-8.07.58-AM-copy-1024x472.jpg" alt="Screenshot from 9 News Australia. Kathleen Folbigg acquitted of manslaughter and murder of her four children | 9 News Australia." width="1024" height="472" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/1Screenshot-2023-12-18-at-8.07.58-AM-copy-1024x472.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/1Screenshot-2023-12-18-at-8.07.58-AM-copy-300x138.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/1Screenshot-2023-12-18-at-8.07.58-AM-copy-768x354.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/1Screenshot-2023-12-18-at-8.07.58-AM-copy-1536x708.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/1Screenshot-2023-12-18-at-8.07.58-AM-copy.jpg 1588w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Screenshot from 9 News Australia.</div>
CEO of the Australian Academy of Science Anna-Maria Arabia <a href="https://7news.com.au/news/court-justice/kathleen-folbiggs-ex-husband-craig-folbigg-has-no-doubt-children-were-murdered--c-10887684" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> Australia’s 7News after Kathleen was released that “this case has shown is that there is no mechanism for us to consider new and emerging evidence as it comes to light and what that means for other cases,” and called for reform.
Not everyone believes Kathleen is truly innocent, even with medical evidence. Her ex-husband Craig, who spent decades believing his wife murdered his children, has been unable to accept the evidence, with his lawyer Danny Eid saying in June that “Craig has no doubt that his children were murdered.” Eid added that “the numbness for him continues.”
Craig remarried in 2004, the year after Kathleen was convicted. Together he and his wife Helen have a son, Connor, but <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/craig-folbiggs-joy-in-new-life-wife-and-baby-20060820-gdo7qv.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The Sydney Morning Herald in 2006 that he still thinks of his deceased children.
&#8220;Not a day passes when I don&#8217;t think of my four other little angels,&#8221; he told the outlet. &#8220;I see their faces always. They are with me everywhere I go and I will love them forever.”

2Screenshot 2023-12-18 at 8.06.25 AM copy

The Tragedy Of Kathleen Folbigg, Wrongly Named ‘Australia’s Worst Female Serial Killer’

Australia

Mother

The African migrant who raped and murdered the British girl for which authorities falsely blamed Amanda Knox in 2007 was released from prison in 2021, remained in the country, and was rearrested this month for allegedly beating another woman.
Rudy Guede, a migrant from the Ivory Coast, was given a 30-year sentence for murder in 2008, but Italian authorities quickly reduced the sentence to 16 years, then let him out even earlier than that in November 2021.
Now, he&#8217;s been rearrested over allegations of beating up another woman, according to the <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/12/06/news/meredith-kercher-killer-rudy-guede-re-arrested-on-assault-allegations/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York Post</a>, citing Italian media.
The Italian prime minister’s office did not return a request for comment asking Guede&#8217;s immigration status and whether he could have been deported after his assorted run-ins with the law.
But the “trial of the century” that gripped the media for years beginning in 2007 looks very different since it has become clear that European governments have let in hordes of migrants and then covered up their crime sprees — and punished Westerners who called attention to the problem.
In retrospect, the Knox case reads like Italian authorities concealing a brutal rape by a migrant by inventing an absurd tale about a seductress from Seattle — even if they had to imprison an innocent American for four years to do it. It worked: Everyone remembers the case, but most don’t even remember that an African migrant was the true culprit.
The reality is that Guede broke into a house, sadistically raped British college student Meredith Kercher, defecated in her bathroom, and darted out into the night to go dancing at a nightclub.
Police had his fingerprints and were well familiar with him; he had broken into a law office not long before using methods identical to the home break-in. Days before the murder, a kindergarten teacher found him breaking into the school and in possession of a knife like that used to stab Kercher, but the police inexplicably dropped the case. If they hadn’t, the murder likely wouldn’t have occurred.
But they did, and it did. And that soft approach was different from the tact reserved for Westerners. They arrested Knox, beat her, and wrote up a false confession in a language she did not understand, she wrote in her memoir, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Waiting-Be-Heard-Amanda-Knox-ebook/dp/B00AHCPXKS/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Waiting To Be Heard</a>.
The crime scene was covered in Guede’s fingerprints and DNA, from the semen staining the room to the feces smeared in the bathroom and the unflushed toilet. Eventually, Italian police could not avoid arresting him — tracking him down in Germany, where he fled. He admitted to German police that he was at the scene but claimed he didn&#8217;t kill Kercher, and that he had fled because he was black and thought police would frame him.
To any logical person, that would have solved the case. But that’s not what happened, and it wasn’t the black person who was being framed.
Italian prosecutor Giuliano Mignini worked with the migrant to turn the story into one in which Knox and her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, inexplicably worked with the migrant to rape their friend. The prosecutor called Guede &#8220;this poor Rudy&#8221; and said Knox and Raffael had accused him of &#8220;being the only one&#8221; to attack Kercher.
Fueled by leaks from prosecutors, the media saturated the world with a case that they covered as a sexualized &#8220;Foxy Knoxy,&#8221; an American sociopath, who ruthlessly stabbed to death and raped her roommate. She had two accomplices, they acknowledged, but those less colorful figures were secondary and essentially anonymous in the narrative.
Knox and Sollecito did not even know Guede, but prosecutors used another migrant, Hekuran Kokomani, to provide false testimony that they did. His testimony was absurd, including claiming he knew Knox through her uncle (who was never in Italy), that she brandished a knife at him which he fought off by throwing olives at her, and that he recognized her because of the gap in her front teeth (which, when he saw her teeth in court he remarked, &#8220;oh, she doesn&#8217;t have it anymore.&#8221;)
A homeless heroin addict named Antonio Curatolo came forward at the last minute to become what the media called the &#8220;super witness.&#8221; He offered testimony that was just what the prosecution needed — and it turned out the same prosecutor had used the same criminal vagrant for the same role in two prior unrelated trials.
Prosecutors selected a knife from a drawer in Sollecito&#8217;s home and declared it the murder weapon through “intuition,” without ever checking Guede&#8217;s apartment. The knife was the wrong size to have stabbed Kercher, but they claimed it did anyway, and that it contained her DNA. The DNA test was flawed but they withheld that evidence from Knox. (After her conviction, it was revealed that the test was wrong. Knox wrote, &#8220;Now I know that these mistakes weren&#8217;t missteps. [They were] giant, intentionally misleading leaps, to come up with results designed to confirm our guilt.”)
Knox’s DNA was not found anywhere at the crime scene itself, but prosecutors turned that lack of evidence into the accusation that she tampered with it — an absurd claim since Guede’s DNA was everywhere, and it would have been impossible for Knox to clean up her own DNA but selectively leave his.
Based entirely on his imagination, prosecutor Giliano Mignini told the jury that Knox had personally stabbed Kercher to death, and that she was not just a participant in, but the ringleader of, the rape. &#8220;For Amanda, the moment had come to take revenge on that simpering girl&#8230; it was an unstoppable game of violence and sex,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Let&#8217;s try to imagine&#8211;she insulted her. Perhaps she said, you were a little saint. Now we&#8217;ll show you. Now you have no choice but to have sex.&#8221;
Due to the overwhelming evidence, Guede was quickly convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years, but his sentence was reduced to 16 years. Prosecutors sought life in prison for the Westerners, and Knox was convicted in 2009 and sentenced to 25 years. She was acquitted on appeal in 2011, but prosecutors would not relent — not only retrying her for murder, but also charging her with slander for exposing the police’s scheme. In 2014, she was found guilty and given 28.5 years, significantly more than Guede. The Supreme Court finally found that she did not kill Kercher. The appeal of the slander charge is still ongoing.
Guede has never formally taken responsibility for the rape, though he allegedly told three fellow inmates that he and a friend showed up at Kercher’s apartment uninvited and gang-raped her before going to a nightclub and dancing.
Scientific experts testified at trial for the defense that the police’s purported DNA evidence on the knife was egregiously flawed, but prosecutors convinced a jury that while the defense’s witnesses had a motive to lie, the government had no such motive.
In the 15 years since, one motive has become clear.
The affair seems like an early exercise by the government and media to conceal the effect of mass immigration from third-world countries. As Europeans have noticed those effects, their countries have tried to hide it, even if it means imprisoning Westerners who speak out.
In 2016, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3397826/American-murdered-Florence-took-kinky-sex-game-strangled-autopsy-finds-police-arrest-drug-dealer-seen-outside-apartment.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an illegal African migrant</a> in Italy, Cheik Tidiane Diaw, strangled to death an American woman named Ashley Olsen. Authorities initially falsely tried to blame a consensual &#8220;kinky sex game.&#8221;
In 2022, the situation in Italy got so bad that the nation elected conservative Giorgia Meloni as prime minister, with Meloni supporting a naval blockade to stop African migrants from flooding Italy&#8217;s shores.
In Ireland, a migrant stabbed children last month, and when the citizenry <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/riots-break-out-in-ireland-after-children-stabbed-outside-school" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rebelled</a>, Ireland authorities blamed the &#8220;far right&#8221; for the safety crisis. Legislators there have proposed a law that would make it illegal to possess any material that could &#8220;incite hatred,&#8221; such as memes questioning the effects of mass migration.
But Knox may stand as one of history’s earliest, and most tragic, victims of the migrant rape coverup — not dissimilar to the prosecution of the father of Loudoun County’s rape victim simply because his family&#8217;s personal tragedy <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/loudoun-county-schools-tried-to-conceal-sexual-assault-against-daughter-in-bathroom-father-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posed a narrative inconvenience</a> to the leftist agenda.
Contrary to the contemporaneous portrayal by the media and prosecutors, what happened in Italy in 2008 was never a co-ed sex scandal, and it was never a close case. It was obvious, from its earliest days, that it was a depraved rape and murder by a criminal African migrant.
The idea that it was more plausible that a 20-year-old from Seattle orchestrated the scheme was always absurd — a defamation by Italian authorities that served a purpose.
&#8220;It was just the start of the many invented stories and giant leaps the prosecution would make to &#8216;prove&#8217; I was involved in the murder,&#8221; Knox wrote in her <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Waiting-Be-Heard-Amanda-Knox-ebook/dp/B00AHCPXKS/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">memoir</a>.

Rudy Guede and Amanda Knox

New Arrest Highlights How Italy Concealed Migrant Rape By Framing Amanda Knox

Italy

Migrants

On January 15, 1947, a mother was taking her 3-year-old daughter for a walk in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Leimert Park, which at the time was mostly undeveloped.
In one of the vacant lots, just feet from the sidewalk, the mother saw what she initially believed to be a mannequin, <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/black-dahlia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to the FBI</a>. Upon closer inspection, however, it was discovered that it was the body of a woman who had been completely severed at the waist. She had been drained of blood and her skin was a sickly white color.
“I glanced to my right, and saw this very dead, white body,” the woman said in a 1997 interview, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-01-06-mn-15889-story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to the Los Angeles Times</a>. “My goodness &#8230; it was so white. It didn’t &#8230; look like anything more than perhaps an artificial model. It was so white and separated in the middle. I noticed the dark hair and this white, white form.”
Her face was slashed from the corners of her mouth to her ears, with additional cuts on her thigh and breasts that had sliced away part of her flesh. Her lower body was about a foot away from her upper body, with her legs spread and her intestines tucked beneath her buttocks. Her arms were bent at the elbows and positioned above her head. Police found a heel print near the body and a sack containing watery blood not far away.
Fingerprints identified the murdered woman as 22-year-old Elizabeth Short, who had been arrested in 1943 for underage drinking. An autopsy revealed that Elizabeth had ligature marks on her ankles, wrists, and neck, along with superficial cuts on her arms and part of her chest. The technique used to cut the body in half, known as a hemicorporectomy, suggested her killer had medical training.
Her official cause of death was hemorrhaging from the cuts on her face and shock from her head being beaten.
Elizabeth was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 29, 1924, the middle child of five sisters. Her father built miniature golf courses until the 1929 stock market crash when he lost most of his savings. A year later, his car was found abandoned at the Charlestown Bridge, suggesting he had jumped into the Charles River to commit suicide.
<div id="attachment_651647" style="width: 409px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-651647" class="wp-image-651647 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-514872462-399x576.jpg" alt="Head shot of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, a murder victim nicknamed the Black Dahlia" width="399" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-514872462-399x576.jpg 399w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-514872462-208x300.jpg 208w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-514872462.jpg 709w" sizes=" (max-width: 399px) 100vw, 399px" />Head shot of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, a murder victim nicknamed the Black Dahlia. Getty Images.</div>
Elizabeth had breathing problems as a child, so her mother moved the family to Miami, Florida, following her father’s disappearance. In 1942 – 12 years after he was believed to have committed suicide – Elizabeth’s father wrote her a letter apologizing for running away and telling her he had started a new life in California. Later that same year, Elizabeth moved to Vallejo, California, to live with her father. After moving around in California and briefly back to Florida following her underage drinking arrest, Elizabeth moved to Los Angeles to visit an acquaintance who was in the military. She would spend the last six months of her life in southern California.
While it has been commonly reported that Elizabeth was an aspiring actress, there is no record of her having any acting jobs or credits.
On January 9, 1947 – a week before her body was discovered – Elizabeth had returned to her home in Los Angeles after visiting a married man in San Diego she had been dating. The man had dropped Elizabeth off at the Biltmore Hotel. Some reports indicated that staff at the hotel had seen Elizabeth using the telephone in the lobby, but a 1997 Los Angeles Times <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-01-06-mn-15889-story.html">article</a> questions the claims, finding no evidence that she was seen at the hotel in “heated news accounts of the day, which reported on every conceivable contact anyone had with Short in the so-called ‘missing week’ before her death.”
The media sensationalized the case, reporting various unverified claims that Elizabeth was a prostitute or pregnant or even a lesbian. Some claimed that the black tailored suit Elizabeth had been last seen wearing was “a tight skirt and a sheer blouse.”
The Los Angeles Examiner, whose reporter beat police to the scene and later said he was the one to close Elizabeth’s eyes, went so far as to trick Elizabeth’s mother by saying Elizabeth had won a beauty contest. The ruse was to get information about Elizabeth for their story, and only after they received all they could, revealed that Elizabeth had been found murdered. The paper also paid for Elizabeth’s mother to fly to L.A. to help police with the investigation, but when she arrived, the paper kept the woman from the police and reporters.
Elizabeth was dubbed the “Black Dahlia,” with reporters claiming credit for the name. It reportedly came from her alleged penchant for wearing sheer black clothes and the 1946 movie “The Blue Dahlia.” It is also rumored to have been a nickname she received while frequenting a Long Beach drugstore.
Six days after Elizabeth’s body was found, the editor of the L.A. Examiner received a call from a man claiming to be her killer. The man said he planned on turning himself in but wanted the police to chase him a bit longer. He also told the editor that he would be sending some “souvenirs” of Elizabeth’s soon. Three days later, on January 24, a manila envelope addressed to the Examiner and other papers were discovered, with words comprising letters cut out of newspaper articles. Inside the envelope were Elizabeth’s birth certificate, business cards, photographs, pieces of paper with various names written on it, and an address book that belonged to a man named Mark Hansen. 
<div id="attachment_651655" style="width: 756px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-651655" class="size-large wp-image-651655" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-56717192-746x576.jpg" alt="Evidence concerning the murder of American aspiring actress and murder victim Elizabeth Short (1924 - 1947), known as the 'Black Dahlia,' is strown across a table at the Los Angeles District Attorney's office, Los Angeles, California, 1947. On the table is a black address book, a newspaper clipping about the death of Short's supposed fiance and American Amy Major Matthew M. Gordon Jr., Short's birth certificate, a business card, a threatening letter assembled from newspaper lettering, a baggage check from a Greyhound bus depot, a Western Union telegram, and several photographs of Short. (Photo by INTERNATIONAL NEWS PHOTO/Getty Images)" width="746" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-56717192-746x576.jpg 746w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-56717192-300x232.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-56717192-768x593.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-56717192.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 746px) 100vw, 746px" />Evidence concerning the murder of American aspiring actress and murder victim Elizabeth Short (1924 &#8211; 1947), known as the &#8216;Black Dahlia.&#8217; (Photo by INTERNATIONAL NEWS PHOTO/Getty Images)</div>
No fingerprints were lifted from the envelope or items, since it had been cleaned with gasoline. Elizabeth’s body had been cleaned in the same way, leading police to believe the items had been sent by her killer. On the same day the envelope arrived, a black handbag and shoe were found two miles from the crime scene, both of which had also been cleaned with gasoline.
On January 26, another letter arrived, with a handwritten note saying the alleged killer would turn himself in on a specific date and time. Police waited, but no one appeared. On the day the man was supposed to turn himself in, the Examiner received another letter, purportedly from the killer, saying he changed his mind and that his killing of Elizabeth was “justified,” but offered no additional details.
<div id="attachment_651649" style="width: 748px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-651649" class="size-large wp-image-651649" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-514957958-738x576.jpg" alt="Robert &quot;Red&quot; Manley identifies Elizabeth Short's purse in the Black Dahlia murder case. The mutilated body of Elizabeth Short, whose nickname was the Black Dahlia for her black wardrobe and dahlias in her hair, was found in a vacant lot in downtown Los Angeles. Manley, a salesman and acquaintance of Short, was one of the last people to be seen with her before her murder." width="738" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-514957958-738x576.jpg 738w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-514957958-300x234.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-514957958-768x599.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-514957958.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 738px) 100vw, 738px" />Robert &#8220;Red&#8221; Manley identifies Elizabeth Short&#8217;s purse in the Black Dahlia murder case. Getty Images.</div>
Police looked into Mark Hansen, whose address book was sent to the Examiner along with Elizabeth’s identification. Hansen owned a nightclub and theater and Elizabeth had briefly stayed with him at one point along with her friends. Hansen was cleared of suspicion, however, along with many other men were potential suspects.
The man with whom Elizabeth was having an affair prior to her death was also cleared, as was an acquaintance who was listed in Hansen’s address book. Another man, a bellhop who was an associate of Hansen, was long believed by some to be responsible for Elizabeth’s murder. The bellhop was actually in San Francisco when Elizabeth had been killed.
Two months after the envelope with items belonging to Elizabeth was received, on March 14, a pile of men’s clothing was found in Venice, California. Inside a shoe, a note was found that said: &#8220;To whom it may concern: I have waited for the police to capture me for the Black Dahlia killing, but have not. I am too much of a coward to turn myself in, so this is the best way out for me. I couldn&#8217;t help myself for that, or this. Sorry, Mary.&#8221;
The clothing did not provide any evidence pointing to an owner or the writer of the alleged suicide note.
Numerous other people have confessed or claimed a family member was Elizabeth’s killer, but those claims  were dismissed by police as false. Some people were even charged with obstruction of justice.
George Hodel, who was never charged with Elizabeth’s murder, remains one of the most longstanding suspects. In 2003, the Los Angeles Times <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-apr-13-me-lopez13-story.html">reported</a> on notes from the 1949 grand jury report on how the LAPD handled various murders, including Elizabeth’s. The notes revealed that investigators had wiretapped Hodel’s home and recorded a conversation between him and another person in which he said: &#8220;Supposin&#8217; I did kill the Black Dahlia. They couldn&#8217;t prove it now. They can&#8217;t talk to my secretary because she&#8217;s dead. They thought there was something fishy. Anyway, now they may have figured it out. Killed her. Maybe I did kill my secretary.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_651643" style="width: 250px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-651643" class="wp-image-651643 size-medium" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-142011752-240x300.jpg" alt="Dr. George Hill Hodel. 38, party involved in alleged incest case and Black Dahlia story. (Photo By: NY Daily News via Getty Images)" width="240" height="300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-142011752-240x300.jpg 240w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-142011752-461x576.jpg 461w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-142011752-768x960.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/GettyImages-142011752.jpg 819w" sizes=" (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px" />Dr. George Hill Hodel. 38, party involved in alleged incest case and Black Dahlia story. (Photo By: NY Daily News via Getty Images)</div>
Hodel had also been suspected of killing his secretary Ruth Spaulding, but he was never charged. Hodel’s son, LAPD homicide detective Steve Hodel, also accused his father of being Elizabeth’s murderer, after George died in 1999. Steve wrote a book about his theory, which was dismissed by the LAPD detective in charge of Elizabeth’s case in the ’90s. The detective said the books included some intriguing facts but only linked to Elizabeth through unsubstantiated theories.
Steve has also tried to link his father to the Zodiac killings and other unsolved cases.
Around 750 investigators worked on the case initially, and many places were searched but no additional evidence was found. The case remains unsolved.

Black Dahlia Evidence

Unsolved: The Black Dahlia, L.A.’s Most Infamous Murder

Los Angeles

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