Tag: serial killers

Sixth body found in Houston bayou leaving Texas city on edge

Fears that a serial killer is on the loose in Houston were raised after a sixth body was pulled from a bayou in a little over a week. 

A staggering 15 bodies have been found in the Buffalo Bayou throughout this year, five of which were discovered in the last 10 days in the Texas city. 

The sixth body was found Thursday night near the University of Houston, when several people riding scooters reported seeing the body floating under a bridge. 

The corpse has not been identified, but the Houston Police Department confirmed that the body was determined to be female. 

Lieutenant A. Khan told Fox26Houston that an investigation into the death is still ongoing, and said it is unclear how the woman ended up in the water. 

Khan also noted that there are several homeless encampments in the area near to where the body was found which is prone to flooding, and said homeless people near the water often end up in bayous when they pass away. 

The chilling discoveries sparked a social media frenzy as locals feared a serial killer may be at large, but Texas authorities have attempted to downplay the repeat instances. 

Officials have not yet identified all those found in recent days, but named Jade ‘Sage’ McKissic, 20, as one of the bodies found in the bayou in the last week.  

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Austin, Texas: Over Three Dozen Bodies Found in Lake Since 2022, Prompting Fears of Serial Killer

Suicides, simple accidents, a deadly combination of alcohol and deep water — or a clever serial killer on the loose in the Texas state capitol?

That’s the question haunting Austin, Texas locals after the dead body count in a reservoir named Lady Bird Lake climbed to 38 recovered corpses since 2022 when another man’s body was pulled from its waters last month.

The Austin Police Department (APD) told Fox News Digital that detectives don’t suspect foul play, and the department is working to determine whether the body recovered is a 17-year-old kayaker reported missing.

But the discovery of yet another dead body has reignited fears that a serial killer is hunting male victims in Austin and disposing their bodies in or around the lake. The reservoir was first created in the 1960s as a cooling pond for a power plant but is now used primarily for recreation and flood control.

Local authorities downplay the possibility of foul play.

However, Dr. Carole Lieberman, a forensic psychiatrist and expert trial witness, told Fox News Digital that the theory can’t be so easily dismissed.

“The denials by law enforcement and other authorities that these cases are murders or the work of a serial killer are premature,” she said. “They don’t want the public to panic about a possible serial killer, so they are making light of all the deaths.”

According to data obtained by Fox 7, of the nearly three dozen bodies found, 30 have reportedly been men, with approximately 60 percent between 30 and 49 years old. Fox 7 reported:

“In the past three years, the causes of death have been mainly attributed to accidental drownings. Second is suicide, as well as drug overdoses, and natural causes. Only one case has been ruled a murder; about half a dozen of these cases remain unknown.”

Lieberman said such statistics often don’t tell the whole story:

One cannot rule out that a so-called ‘accidental’ drowning isn’t the result of a murderer unless there were witnesses. Murderers can use drowning as their [modus operandi]. Similarly, suicides must be proven, not just assumed if someone has been depressed.

The psychiatrist added that date rape drugs can render even a man easy prey for a thief or a killer, citing water as an attractive way to dispose of a body:

Water can cause decomposition of the body and can wash away evidence, from fingerprints to DNA. If the water has movement, such as a river or stream, it can propel the body far from the actual scene of the crime, making it more complicated to find the killer. Some killers choose water-based crime scenes with the hopes that their murder will be misconstrued as drowning, which can make it harder, because it can be difficult to differentiate drowning from murder.

In a 2023 statement, Fox Digital reported, APD tried to dispense of public fears that a serial killer was targeting men in the area. The department cited alcohol mixed with a large body of water as the culprit, with the majority of deaths occurring after the surrounding park’s closing time.

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Florida serial killer praises Trump in final words before execution

A suspected serial killer once scrutinized for a possible link to the O.J. Simpson case that riveted the nation in the 1990s was executed Thursday in Florida for the murder of a woman found dead in a Tampa motel room.

Glen Rogers, 62, received a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke and was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m., authorities said. He was convicted in Florida of the 1995 murder of Tina Marie Cribbs, a 34-year-old mother of two he had met at a bar.

He also had drawn a separate death sentence in California for the 1995 strangulation killing of Sandra Gallagher, a mother of three whom he had met at a bar in Van Nuys in that state. That killing came weeks before the Cribbs murder. Rogers was stopped after a highway chase in Kentucky while driving Cribbs’ car soon after her death.

In a final statement, Rogers thanked his wife, who visited him earlier in the day at the prison, according to visitor logs. He also somewhat cryptically said that “in the near future, your questions will be answered” without going into detail. He also said, “President Trump, keep making America great. I’m ready to go.” Then the lethal injection began, and he lay quietly through the procedure.

The entire execution took just 16 minutes. Once it began, Rogers hardly moved, only lying still with his mouth slightly open. At one point, a staff member grasped him by the shoulders, shook him and yelled, “Rogers, Rogers” to see if he was conscious. No family members of the Florida victim spoke to the press afterwards.

Rogers was named as a suspect but never convicted in several other slayings around the country, once telling police he had killed about 70 people. He later recanted that statement, but had been the subject of documentaries, including one from 2012 called “My Brother the Serial Killer” that featured his brother Clay and a criminal profiler who had corresponded extensively with Rogers.

The documentary raised questions about whether Rogers could have been responsible for the 1994 stabbing deaths of Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.

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Fears of New US Serial Killer After Eighth Death in String of Peaceful Towns

Social media users fear that a serial killer is on the loose in New England after police pronounced a woman dead in Massachusetts on Tuesday.

Between March and April, three Northeastern states have reported the discovery of human remains, most of them belonging to women, according to Fox News.

This latest incident in Springfield, Massachusetts, where police responded to a call about an unresponsive woman found near a bike path, marked the eighth death that internet sleuths have attributed to a supposed killer.

It is unclear if the woman died before police arrived, but the Springfield Police Department revealed that she was dead shortly after they arrived on the scene.

While SPD has not yet determined a cause of death, the woman’s demise has fanned the flames of the ongoing rumors.

The rumors reportedly originated on a Facebook group called “New England Serial Killer,” which is changing its name due to Facebook policy. The group has more than 66,000 members.

Before this incident, four sets of remains — in different stages of decomposition — were reported in Connecticut, one in Rhode Island, and now three in Massachusetts, according to Fox News.

“The first thing that strikes me as curious is the fact that seven sets of remains have been found over the span of two months,” Peter Valentin, chair of the Forensic Science Department at the University of New Haven, told Fox News. “That in and of itself is rather curious. It’s certainly a lot to find in a little. It’s a large number of human remains to find in a short period of time.”

While the bodies were discovered over two months, each had decomposed to different degrees of severity, indicating the deaths had happened much further apart.

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Another Body Found in Massachusetts Fuels Speculation and Fears About Possible New England Serial Killer

Last week, the Gateway Pundit reported that fears are growing that New England towns are being hunted by a serial killer.

Now another body has been found, this time in Springfield, Massachusetts, a small city in the western part of the state. This brings the victim count to eight. Most of the victims have been women.

Authorities are still trying to downplay speculation about the case but the subject is receiving an ever-increasing amount of attention on social media.

FOX News reported:

New England serial killer fears heighten after eighth idyllic town rocked by gruesome discovery

Massachusetts authorities are investigating the death of a woman found unresponsive off a bike path in Springfield on Tuesday.

Springfield Police Department spokesperson Ryan Walsh said officers responded to reports of an unresponsive person near a bike path at the 1500 block of Hall of Fame Avenue.

Upon arrival, officers discovered a woman who was pronounced dead shortly after.

“The SPD Homicide Unit under the direction Captain Trent Duda is conducting an unattended death investigation in conjunction with the @HampdenDA Murder Unit, pending an autopsy by the Medical Examiner,” Walsh said.

The woman’s death comes amid rumors circulating online about a possible New England serial killer following the deaths of seven and now eight people, mostly women, between March and April in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. As of Wednesday, authorities have not announced any kind of connection between the eight victims’ deaths…

The rumors began circulating on a Facebook group called “New England Serial Killer,” which has since changed its name due to Facebook rules and regulations. Over the last two months, human remains have been located in New Haven, Norwalk, Groton and Killingly, Connecticut; Foster, Rhode Island; and Framingham, Plymouth and now Springfield, Massachusetts.

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Accused serial killer Antonio Reyes charged with six Chicago murders in 2020

Chicago police and Cook County prosecutors on Wednesday announced murder charges against an alleged serial killer accused of killing six people at random over a span of nine months in 2020.

Antonio Reyes, 21, is charged with the murders of six people and the attempted murders of four others – including three children, between March and November 2020, according to police and Cook County court records:

  • The shooting death of 31-year-old Francisco Mangana on March 2, 2020, in the 2600 block of West 59th Street;
  • The shooting death of 21-year-old Claudio Cossio on April 5, 2020, in the 4100 block of South Sacramento Avenue; and the attempted murder of another man in the same shooting;
  • The shooting death of 16-year-old Damian Duran on May 1, 2020, in the 5200 block of South Homan Avenue;
  • The shooting death of 26-year-old Luis Davalos Garcia on June 24, 2020, in the 5800 block of South Rockwell Avenue;
  • The shooting death of 31-year-old Jose Martinez on Nov. 8, 2020, in the 5400 block of South Homan Avenue; and the attempted murders of Martinez’s three children, who were all between 3 and 9 years old at the time;
  • The shooting death of 20-year-old Justin Gonzalez on Nov. 9, 2020, in the 4700 block of West 59th Street.

“These are six lives that were brutally taken,” Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling said. “It’s difficult to comprehend how anyone could easily take someone’s life, and especially so many in one year.”

Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Garien Gatewood said, “I cannot commend the work of the Chicago Police Department enough” for its work on the case.

“Our entire administration and our entire city is grateful for the work they did to remove a serial killer from the streets. I cannot thank the work of the State’s Attorney’s office enough, either,” Gatewood said.

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Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect studied ‘Mindhunter’ book like ‘homework’, typed planning notes on Microsoft Word, and murdered woman as far back as 1993: Docs

Prosecutors in the Suffolk County, New York, confirmed Thursday that the suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer has been formally accused of two more murders, but the bail application to make extra certain that Rex Heuermann remains behind bars also provided details that are chilling in their implications.

Heuermann, now 60, was infamously arrested last summer on the strength of discarded pizza crust and DNA evidence that allegedly linked him to male hairs found on the victims, of whom there are now six.

The Manhattan architect, already accused of murdering Melissa Barthelemy, 24, Megan Waterman, 22, Amber Costello, 27, and Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, in the late 2000s and 2010 on Long Island, has since been indicted in the 2003 slaying of Jessica Taylor, 20, and the 1993 murder of Sandra Costilla, 28.

Simply put, the link between Heuermann and a murder from the early 1990s, when he would have been around 30 years old, raises the distinct possibility that, if he really is who prosecutors say he is, there’s no telling how far back the serial killings largely targeting sex workers may go or how many victims there might be.

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10,000 human remains found on serial killer’s farm — and authorities are still identifying victims

For years, a peaceful million-dollar farm in Indiana hid a dark secret — it was a serial killer’s playground.

When cops finally raided Herb Baumeister’s 18-acre property in Westfield, north of Indianapolis, they uncovered some 10,000 pieces of human remains — mostly crushed and burned skeletal fragments of the teenage boys and young men whom he had abducted and murdered in the 1980s and 90s.

Nearly 30 years after Baumeister killed himself while on the run from police, authorities are still sifting through the remains and identifying victims.

The Hamilton County Coroner announced last month that human remains recovered from Herb Baumeister’s Fox Hollow Farm in 1996 were positively identified as belonging to Jeffrey A. Jones, who went missing in 1993.

Jones is the third victim to be identified in recent months.

There are an additional four DNA profiles found at Baumeister’s property that have not been identified, bringing the total number of his victims to 12, Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison said.

“Because many of the remains were found burnt and crushed, this investigation is extremely challenging; however, the team of law enforcement and forensic specialists working the case remain committed,” Jellison said.

Baumeister, a businessman and married father of three, hunted gay teens and men in central Indiana beginning in at least 1980. He’s believed to have killed at least 25 people, Fox News Digital reported.

He reportedly used the fake name “Brian Smart” and targeted young gay men he met at bars.

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‘I survived the Rainey Street ripper’: Drugged man who plummeted 25ft off bridge believes ‘serial killer’ stalking Austin tried to drown him

A man who was drugged and plummeted 25ft off a bridge, narrowly missing certain drowning, believes he could have been targeted by the ‘Rainey Street ripper’.

Jeff Jones, 38, was on a bachelor party trip to Austin with a dozen friends from his home in Boston on June 23 last year.

He woke up in hospital more than two weeks later with metal rods holding his back together and doctors found the date-rape drug GHB in his system.

Jones believes he was drugged before the would-be killer pushed him off the bridge over a stream where he was supposed to drown and float away.

‘Whoever they may be just missed the target and I hit the ground, and luckily because of that I didn’t drown,’ he told DailyMail.com.

‘I just got lucky… Not many people can say they potentially survived a serial killer, so that’s a story I can tell, I guess.’

Locals have for years feared a serial killer is on the loose as a dozen bodies were pulled from the Colorado River and Lady Bird Lake near the popular bar district.

Two more were found in the past month, both of which are not yet identified, but like all but one of the others were ruled not suspicious by police. 

Police insist there is no killer at large, but rumors of a ‘Rainey Street Ripper‘ have continued to swirl as the bodies pile up.

Jones and his friends began with dinner at the Iron Cactus, and then went to the Rustic Tap and Play – both on West 6th Street.

About 1am he somehow became separated from his group, but he doesn’t remember anything from well before that.

Jones is 6ft 3in and can handle alcohol, and said he wasn’t drinking heavily that night as the trip was a weekend-long affair.

His friends last heard from him about 1.30am, after which he stopped replying to texts and his phone went dead.

An anonymous 911 call was placed about 4am after he was spotted lying motionless at the bottom of the historic West Sixth Street Bridge.

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Botched execution of serial killer in Idaho puts focus on capital punishment secrecy laws

In 2012, two Idaho prison officials chartered a private plane and flew to Washington state with thousands of dollars in cash.

They met with a pharmacist behind closed doors and bought the drug for a convicted murderer’s lethal injection.

Only a years-long public records lawsuit revealed the pharmacist’s name, the pharmacy and other details of the exchange. After prison officials said the pharmacist’s exposure had scared away other lethal drug suppliers, Idaho lawmakers barred such information from getting out again.

Idaho tried and failed Wednesday to execute Thomas Eugene Creech, a 73-year-old serial killer who had been in prison for 50 years. Neither his attorneys nor the public knew where the state obtained the drug or the exact qualifications of his executioners.

Opponents say secrecy laws are are a significant hurdle to accountability and make it hard to ensure that the procedures aren’t unconstitutionally painful, whether the deaths are carried out successfully — as Texas did Wednesday in the case of Ivan Cantu — or botched like Creech’s.

Idaho long kept the identities of execution team members and drug suppliers secret but judges were still able to force disclosure of the information if it was relevant to lawsuits or appeals. The new law prohibits state officials from disclosing the information, even if under court order.

The law also prevents professional licensing boards from taking disciplinary action against people for participating in executions.

Such secrecy is typical among states that impose capital punishment, including Texas, where lawmakers passed a similar measure in 2015 to ensure drug suppliers did not face retaliation or harassment for cooperating with executions.

“States are saying, ‘We don’t need to show you the information about … how we find or drugs or the training of the prison staff,’” said Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit that tracks executions. “And then, when things go wrong, they can’t be held accountable.”

Creech was convicted of five murders in three states and suspected of several more. He has been in custody since 1974 and was already serving a life term when he beat a fellow inmate, 22-year-old David Dale Jensen, to death in 1981 — the crime for which he was to be executed.

When his appointed hour came at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Creech was wheeled into the execution chamber and strapped to a table. Medical personnel poked and prodded at his arms, legs, hands and feet for nearly an hour, making eight attempts, but they couldn’t find a vein they thought would hold up long enough to deliver the fatal dose. He was returned to his cell.

It is unclear whether or when the state might try again, or how. Like other states concerned about the availability of lethal injection, Idaho recently passed a law allowing for firing squads as a backup, but the state has yet to write protocols for using that method or build a facility where it could shoot people to death. It has not approved the use of nitrogen gas, a method used for the first time early this year in Alabama.

Creech’s execution team comprised volunteers who, according to Idaho execution protocols, were required to have at least three years of medical experience, such as having been a paramedic, and to have “current venous access proficiency.” They were not necessarily doctors, who famously take an oath to “do no harm” — though Idaho Department of Correction Director Josh Tewalt later told lawmakers that the executioners regularly use their IV skills to save lives in their day jobs. They wore white balaclava-style coverings to conceal their faces.

Tewalt defended the state’s approach, saying the department ensures execution drugs are acquired lawfully, provides test results showing their authenticity, and ensures medical members of the execution team meet or exceed required qualifications.

“I would argue we are very transparent about any information that speaks to the integrity of the process,” said Tewalt. “What we won’t do is tell you their names.”

Tewalt also disagreed with characterizing the attempt as “botched” — stopping the execution after the failed IVs prevented the process from truly going awry, he said.

Creech, according to his attorneys, suffers from several conditions that could have made vein accessibility challenging: Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and edema. It can also be more difficult for older people to have IVs inserted, as their veins can be less stable.

“This is precisely the kind of mishap we warned the State and the Courts could happen when attempting to execute one of the country’s oldest death-row inmates in circumstances completely shielded in secrecy,” Creech’s attorneys, with the nonprofit Federal Defender Services of Idaho, said in a written statement.

Among the arguments they made in their unsuccessful last-minute petitions to the U.S. Supreme Court was that the secrecy violated Creech’s due-process rights and could constitute cruel and unusual punishment if the lethal drug, the sedative pentobarbital, was of poor quality and caused unnecessary pain or complications.

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