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

On Friday 13th September 1973, 20-year-old David McGreavy was left babysitting the three Ralph children in Worcester while their parents were out. He killed all three.

McGreavy then took a pick-axe to the bodies before impaling the remains on the wrought iron fence spikes of the house next door, where they were discovered by neighbours. The killings, carried out on the date now inseparable from bad luck and horror folklore, later fed the case’s grim nickname as Britain’s real life Friday the 13th murders. McGreavy was convicted and given three life sentences.

⬅ See all events from 13 September

Murder Prison Trial UK Worcester

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

John Taylor and George Waters had absconded from the notorious penal settlement at Macquarie Harbour, Van Diemen’s Land’s infamous secondary punishment station for repeat offenders, before turning to highway robbery. Their crime involved robbing soldiers of their arms, a particularly bold offence that ultimately led to their conviction.

Both men were sentenced to death on 2 September 1826 and hanged together at Hobart just eleven days later, on 13 September 1826.

British Army drum and muskets historical military equipment

⬅ See all events from 13 September

Australia Escape Execution Hobart Prison Robbery TAS

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Aileen Wuornos had already established a deadly pattern along Florida’s highways, targeting men she encountered while working as a sex worker and hitchhiking around the state. Her fifth known victim was a 56-year-old retired police chief. After disappearing, his body was found on September 12 in an isolated area of Marion County. He had been shot seven times in the head and torso with Wuornos’s .22-calibre revolver.

By this stage, Wuornos’s killings had moved well beyond the disputed circumstances surrounding her first victim, Richard Mallory, whose death she maintained had been in self-defence. This latest killing formed part of an escalating pattern that would claim one more victim before police arrested her in January 1991, bringing to an end one of America’s most notorious female serial killing sprees.

Prisoner handcuffed during lethal injection with syringe and vial

⬅ See all events from 12 September

Florida Murder Serial Killer Trial USA

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Serial killer Donald Gaskins, already condemned to die at Central Correctional Institution, murdered fellow death row inmate Rudolph Tyner using a homemade bomb built from C4 plastic explosive concealed inside a device disguised as a portable radio speaker. The device was passed to Tyner and detonated, killing him instantly.

Gaskins carried out the killing as a paid hit, hired for 2,000 dollars by Tony Cimo, the son of a couple Tyner had murdered years earlier. Cimo wanted revenge on his parents’ killer and used Gaskins, already notorious as one of South Carolina’s most prolific murderers, to get it from inside the prison itself.

Mobster planting a time bomb in a car engine compartment

⬅ See all events from 12 September

Murder Organised Crime Prison Serial Killer South Carolina USA

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Subscribe to Dark Stories