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

1989: The Night Stalker Convicted on All 43 Counts: Richard Ramirez Faces California Justice

Richard Ramirez, the serial killer known as the Night Stalker who terrorised California in 1984 and 1985, was found guilty on every one of the 43 charges brought against him: thirteen counts of murder, five attempted murders, eleven sexual assaults, and fourteen burglaries.

The trial itself became a spectacle of its own, dragging on for years and costing an estimated 1.8 million dollars, making it one of the most expensive criminal trials in California history at the time.

Ramirez showed no remorse throughout proceedings, at one point flashing a pentagram drawn on his palm to reporters and declaring his admiration for Satan.

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Burglary California Murder Serial Killer Sexual Assault Trial USA

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1952: Steps From Home: the Unsolved Murder of Betty Shanks in Brisbane

On the night of 19 September 1952, 22 year old Betty Shanks stepped off a tram at the Grange terminus in Brisbane and set off on the short walk home. She never made it and her body was found the next morning, in the front garden of a house just metres from her parents’ own home.

Despite an extensive police investigation and decades of renewed interest, no one was ever charged over her death. The case has become one of Queensland’s most haunting cold cases. A young woman killed almost within sight of her own front door, with her killer never identified.

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Australia Brisbane Cold Case Murder QLD Unsolved

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1881: President James A. Garfield Dies 79 Days After an Assassin’s Bullet, Washington D.C.

James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, was shot on July 2, 1881 at a Washington D.C. railway station by Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled and mentally unstable office seeker who had been refused a political appointment.

The wound itself was not immediately fatal, but the president lingered for 79 days as infection set in, worsened by doctors repeatedly probing the injury with unsterilised fingers and instruments in the years before antiseptic surgery was widely practised in America. Garfield died on September 19, 1881, becoming the second American president assassinated in office after Abraham Lincoln.

Guiteau stood trial and was hanged the following year, reportedly declaring at his execution that he had acted for the good of the nation and that his death would be a great loss to politics.

Engraving of the assassination of President Garfield

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Assassination Execution Murder Political Crime USA

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1980: Smuggled in a Book Spine: the Hillside Strangler Plot to Fake a Copycat Killing

On September 19, 1980, Veronica Compton attempted to strangle a 26-year-old woman at a motel in Bellingham, Washington. The attack was part of a plot to convince authorities that imprisoned Hillside Strangler Kenneth Bianchi was innocent—and that the real killer remained at large.

Bianchi had supplied Compton with a semen-filled condom concealed in the spine of a book. She was to plant its contents at the scene of a staged rape and murder, creating false evidence to cast doubt on his guilt. But the woman survived, and the scheme unravelled.

Compton was convicted of first-degree attempted murder in March 1981. She remained imprisoned until 2003.

Close-up of worn book spine titled Modern English Drama

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Arizona Attempted Murder Escape Murder Prison Serial Killer Trial USA Washington

1989: The Night Stalker Convicted on All 43 Counts: Richard Ramirez Faces California Justice

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1952: Steps From Home: the Unsolved Murder of Betty Shanks in Brisbane

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1881: President James A. Garfield Dies 79 Days After an Assassin’s Bullet, Washington D.C.

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1980: Smuggled in a Book Spine: the Hillside Strangler Plot to Fake a Copycat Killing

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