Dark Stories: On This Day In True Crime History - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

John Crisp was already serving a life sentence for stealing four ducks and two turkeys when he was being escorted to the watch-house at Swanport by two constables. Within sight of the building, he drew a razor from his pocket and slashed the prosecutor, William Donohoo, across the face, a gash running from near his mouth almost to his left ear.

Crisp was tried and convicted of wounding with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm, and was hanged at Oatlands on this day in 1851. The second constable escorting him, a pensioner on his very first night of duty, resigned from the force the following day.

Razor Blades: Good for shaving...and for murder — Razor Blades: Good for shaving…and for murder

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Assault Australia Convict Era Execution Oatlands TAS Trial

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Paul Avery had spent months covering the unidentified killer terrorising Northern California for the San Francisco Chronicle, turning his byline into the public face of the investigation. That attention made him a target of the very man he was writing about.

On 27 October 1970, the Zodiac Killer sent a letter addressed directly to Avery, taunting the journalist for the coverage that had made his name synonymous with the case. The killer was never identified, and the letter remains one of the eeriest pieces of correspondence in a case still unsolved more than half a century later.

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California Cold Case Crime Correspondence San Francisco Serial Killer Unsolved USA

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Armed men burst into a session of the Armenian National Assembly and opened fire on the chamber, killing the country’s prime minister, Vazgen Sargsyan, and the Speaker, Karen Demirchyan, along with six other officials. The attack unfolded in front of television cameras broadcasting the sitting live, and the gunmen later claimed they were staging a coup with the prime minister as their target.

Armenian troops surrounded the parliament building and began negotiations as the gunmen held hostages inside. After a tense standoff on this day in 1999, the attackers surrendered without further bloodshed, leaving the nation to reckon with the loss of its top two leaders in a single afternoon.

Bust of Vazgen Sargsyan in Shushi Artsakh Armenia | ID 229264273 © Kar881am | Dreamstime.com — ID 229264273 © Kar881am | Dreamstime.com

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Armenia Asia Assassination Europe Kidnapping Political Crime Terrorism

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Ivan Milat, convicted of murdering seven backpackers whose remains were scattered through the Belanglo State Forest south of Sydney, spent 25 years in custody without ever publicly admitting guilt. He told interviewers his family had nothing to do with the killings, and police who visited him eight times in his final months, even playing him recorded messages from victims families, could not shake his denial.

His years inside were marked by strange, desperate acts of self-harm. In 2009 he sliced off his own little finger with a plastic knife, intending to post it to the High Court of Australia to force an appeal, and in 2011 he starved himself for nine days and lost 25 kilograms in a failed bid to be given a PlayStation.

Milat died of oesophageal cancer in the hospital wing of a Sydney prison on this day in 2019, still publicly protesting his innocence. He reportedly told his mother, the one person he trusted, that he had carried out the backpacker murders.

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Australia Death Murder NSW Prison Serial Killer Sydney

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