Murder - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

1992: Eyes Removed, Organs Eaten: Andrei Chikatilo Convicted of 52 Murders in Rostov

Andrei Chikatilo cut the eyes from his victims, believing the dead retained an image of their killer burned into their retinas. He could only reach climax while torturing or murdering, and prosecutors said he ate parts of his victims, including their sexual organs, over a killing spree across the Rostov region that claimed at least 52 lives, mostly women and children lured into forests and fields.

On this day a Russian court convicted him on all counts. He was executed by a single shot to the back of the head, a death far quicker than any he gave the people he killed.

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Cannibalism Europe Execution Murder Russia Serial Killer Trial

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1841: Facing the Noose Near Perth, He Believed He Would Return

A boy named John Burtenshaw was killed in 1839 while minding sheep on the banks of the Canning River near Maddington, within sight of a farm a few miles from Perth. The accused was identified as responsible during a tense period of conflict between settlers and Aboriginal communities on the colonial frontier.

He was tried and sentenced to death, then taken from Fremantle gaol in 1841 and hanged at the very spot where the killing had occurred. Accounts recorded that on the road to the gallows he showed no fear, finding comfort in a belief that after death he would come back to life.

Curved sandy riverbank on Canning River in Perth at sunset

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Australia Canning River Colonial Era Execution Fremantle Frontier Conflict Maddington Murder Perth Trial WA

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2000: Melbourne Gangland War: Dino Dibra Ambushed and Shot Dead Outside His Own Home

Dino Dibra, 25, was one of the early casualties of Melbourne‘s gangland war. He was gunned down on this day the moment he stepped outside his home in Sunshine West, hit multiple times in what police believed was a professional, pre-planned hit rather than a chance confrontation.

Investigators were confident a hired shooter had been waiting for him, and suspicion quickly fell on Andrew Veniamin, a figure who would go on to be linked to several more killings as the underworld conflict spread across the city. Dibra’s murder became one of the opening chapters in a decade-long cycle of tit-for-tat violence that would eventually claim more than thirty lives.

Gangland: more than a dictionary definition in Melbourne, 1998–2010.

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Australia Gang Melbourne Murder Organised Crime Sunshine West Unsolved VIC

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2002: A Hit List and a Dropped Gun: the Adelaide Murder of Dr Margaret Tobin

Jean Eric Gassy was a psychiatrist deregistered in 1997 after Dr Margaret Tobin, his former boss, flagged his fitness to practise. Convinced she had conspired to destroy his career, he drew up a hit list of doctors and, five months before her death, followed her to a conference in Brisbane armed with a gun, only to drop it on the pavement outside and abandon the attempt.

On 14 October 2002 he tried again, flying to Adelaide, disguising himself and following Tobin into the lift of her Hindmarsh Square office. As she stepped out onto her floor, he shot her four times, then removed his disguise and walked away. Convicted of murder in 2004, he won a retrial when the High Court found the trial judge’s directions had caused a substantial miscarriage of justice; a second jury convicted him again in 2009, and he remains in prison with a non-parole period of 34 years.

Shot whilst stepping out of an elevator door.

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Adelaide Assassination Australia Brisbane Mental Health Murder QLD SA Trial

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