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

Edvard Munch’s iconic painting The Scream, stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo on 22 August 2004, was recovered by Norwegian police on 31 August 2006. The theft had been carried out in broad daylight by masked gunmen who forced staff to the ground before fleeing with the painting and another Munch work, Madonna.

The recovery came after a lengthy investigation involving multiple arrests. The paintings were found hidden and showed some damage, but were ultimately restored and returned to public display.

Edvard Munch, The Scream (1893). Photo: Børre Høstland/National Museum of Norway. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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Art Theft Europe Norway Organised Crime Oslo Robbery

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For months in 1985, Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, terrorised California, breaking into homes while families slept to assault, mutilate, and murder. His reign of terror ended not with a police operation but with a newspaper front page: once his mugshot was published across California media, his anonymity was gone.

On 31 August 1985, Ramirez attempted to carjack vehicles in the Boyle Heights neighbourhood of East Los Angeles. Residents recognised him, chased him down the sreet, and beat him to the ground before police arrived to take him into custody. Facing the mob, Ramirez reportedly confessed to officers, preferring arrest to the alternative.

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Boyle Heights California Capture East Los Angeles Los Angeles Murder Organised Crime Serial Killer Trial USA

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After five hours of delivering his reasons in a judge-alone trial, Justice Ian Harrison found former rugby league footballer Chris Dawson guilty of murdering his wife, Lynette Dawson, who vanished from their Bayview home near Sydney on or about 8 January 1982. Lynette had been planning to meet her mother the following day; she never arrived. Chris did not report her missing for six weeks, and two days after her disappearance, a teenage student he had groomed moved permanently into the family home.

Two coronial inquests had already concluded Lynette was murdered, but prosecution was twice refused due to insufficient evidence. A podcast revival of the case and sustained public pressure finally brought Dawson to trial. Justice Harrison rejected all alleged sightings of Lynette as wholly unreliable and found a compelling body of evidence that she had not abandoned her family. Dawson was sentenced to 24 years in prison, with a non-parole period of 18 years.

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Australia Cold Case Disappearance Murder NSW Sydney Trial

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Mark Liebglid, a commercial traveller who bought and sold pearls in Perth-region waters for Freedman and Co. and Falk and Co., was lured aboard the abandoned schooner Mist in Broome harbour on 30 August 1905 under the pretence of viewing a stolen pearl. Known for flashing a large money clip, a gold signet ring, and a willingness to buy pearls of questionable provenance, Liebglid was beaten with a slingshot and oars by Charles Hagen, Pablo Marquez, and Simeon Espada, then drowned. His body was found floating near the vessel the following morning.

The stolen pearl at the centre of the plot was believed to have been hidden by a crew member in a coil of rope with its whereabouts never conclusively confirmed.

Schooner Mist showing where Mark Leibglid was thrown overboard

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Australia Broome Execution Murder Organised Crime WA

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