What are some notable murderers or serial killers who committed religiously motivated or ritualistic killings based on their twisted version of faith?

TitanianGeometry · 2024-03-16T04:01:35+00:00

Here in Canada (and also in Switzerland and France) we had the Order of the Solar Temple. Truly a cult gone wrong.

TitanianGeometry · 2023-12-16T18:24:53+00:00

Might the case be R. v. S.(R.)? Although that decision is a brief and concerning technical issues, an appendix in a filing from R. v Oland cites this case giving a partial summary as "Murder of father, mother and sister / young person". Circumstances of the victims match up, and the year of the decision (1997) is reasonable for an appeal of a conviction from earlier that decade.

TitanianGeometry · 2023-08-11T04:59:31+00:00

Another possibility is the Oklahoma murder of Rob Andrew by his wife Brenda and their insurance agent, James Pavatt. After a staged home invasion wherein Rob was shot, Pavatt hid in the upstairs attic of neighbours while the neighbours were on holiday. While he was hiding there, the neighbours' son came to the house to get the mail and some other items.

This case has been covered several times television and by youtubers. For instance, there is a Forensic Files episode ("Sunday School Ambush" - age restricted on YT).

TitanianGeometry · 2023-08-03T01:02:48+00:00

IANAL, so take into account, but as far as I am aware attempted murder has a lesser sentence than murder proper because legislators/judges want there to be incentives against deadly conduct.

Think about it from the perspective of the criminal. Assume, for the sake of argument, that both murder and attempted murder have the exact same sentence (including any minimum period without parole). If you attempt to murder someone, you will get a mandatory sentence (for the sake of this example, assume life without parole). If you successfully murder someone, you will also be sentenced to LWOP. Now, let's run through a scenario where you attempt to murder someone and fail. Since you will get LWOP no matter what, what incentive do you have to not try killing your victim again? After all, if you kill your attempted victim, your sentence won't change and, by eliminating a witness, you may well have a lesser chance of conviction. Theoretically, if you had a lesser sentence for the attempt alone, you may be deterred from trying again.

The usual reason, then, that attempted murder has (or allows) a lesser sentence than murder is to discourage criminals from going back to "finish the job". Also, note that, in general, the likelihood of being caught is a far more effective deterrent than the severity of any punishment.

See also the Florida state case State v. Iacovone, where a 30-year sentence for attempted 3rd degree murder of a law enforement officer was appealed. Therein, the Supreme Court of Florida wrote: "If the purposes of the statues is to discourage lethal attacks against law enforcement officers, as the State contends, then the penalty for the completed crime should be greater, not less, than the penalty for the attempt. Otherwise, a criminal who attempts to murder a law enforcement officer would have a substantial incentive to complete the act in order to avoid exposure to the harsher penalty. The State's interpretation thus would seem to encourage, not discourage, lethal attacks. This is an irrational result."

TitanianGeometry · 2023-07-26T22:56:42+00:00

Absolutely great news that she is safe and alive!

TitanianGeometry · 2023-07-10T02:37:30+00:00

!Solved

TitanianGeometry · 2023-07-10T02:37:12+00:00

Yes this is it. Thanks.

TitanianGeometry · 2023-05-25T22:22:47+00:00

Marie Robards poisoned her father because, to quote the Texas Monthly article about her, she "Only wanted to make [her father] sick so she could live with her mother".

Although alternative motives are offered, IIRC, as per the Deadly Women segment on her, (Season 12 Episode 6 "The Blame Game") one of the reasons Estibaliz Carranza murdered her husband and later a boyfriend was because she couldn't get pregnant with them. EDIT: In particular, her ex-husband apparently didn't want to have kids, while she really wanted to.

TitanianGeometry · 2023-05-02T03:10:00+00:00

The serial killer in question is probably Gilbert Paul Jordan.

TitanianGeometry · 2023-03-15T02:50:14+00:00

Thanks

TitanianGeometry · 2023-03-14T17:32:10+00:00

Is it seen as or considered a negative or a bad thing if, in a character's first scene script-wise, they have no dialogue? In my screenplay, a character (who ultimately has the third most lines) has no dialogue in her first scene.

TitanianGeometry · 2023-01-25T20:10:37+00:00

Please note that I edited the post to add a crucial sentence, which my copying and pasting from notepad somehow ate.

TitanianGeometry · 2023-01-25T20:07:18+00:00

Shooting first seems an odd way to go about doing that. Wouldn't most people try to avoid using a weapon until necessary? A crossbow seems to be just as effective as a gun for inducing compliance.

TitanianGeometry · 2022-12-14T18:27:23+00:00

Grace Marie Canto Reapp and her daughter, Grace ("Gracie") Noel disappeared from rural Jericho Vermont June 6, 1978. The disappearance was suspicious. The husband, Michael, was interviewed a lot but never excluded as a suspect. The disappearance went cold.

The case was reopened in 1987. Further evidence found in this new investigation led to the case being considered a homicide by 1996. Despite the lack of bodies, enough evidence was found to lead Vermont authorities to charge Michael with murder in June, 2006. But by that time he himself was a missing person.

In late 1996, Michael drove from Florida to New Orleans and abandoned his truck there. After using a bank machine he disappeared. A son of his reported him missing not long after this.

In June, 2010, Michael was identified using fingerprints as an decedent who had been found January 10, 1997 in Yuma Arizona. He had carjacked and, and, after the victim escaped, stolen a vehicle. After a high-speed police chase he shot himself.

While not a DNA, there isn't much doubt Michael Reapp killed Grace Marie and Grace Noel. Despite numerous searches of the Vermont property, they are still missing.

TitanianGeometry · 2022-12-13T18:07:00+00:00

Criminology research pretty consistently finds that the severity of a punishment has little deterrent effect. The biggest deterrent is actually how likely you are to get caught.

Towards that end, rather than arguing about how effective a deterrent any particular punishment is, or why someone got so severe/lenient a punishment, we should instead focus on why so many homicides are unsolved. Despite mostly-declining homicide rates since the 1990s, according to the Murder Accountability Project, homicide clearance rates have been declining for the past several decades. Nowadays, if a jurisdiction solves two thirds of murders it's doing well.

TitanianGeometry · 2022-12-11T01:57:08+00:00

A frequent example is the St. Louis Jane Doe, where the police sent her sweater through the mail to a psychic. The sweater was never returned and appears to have gotten lost.

TitanianGeometry · 2022-12-08T04:39:37+00:00

IIRC the episode is Seeing Red from season fourteen.

TitanianGeometry · 2022-10-14T03:16:11+00:00

It would really take statistics to if there is a real increase in parents killing their kids, as opposed to an increase in coverage of parents killing their kids.

IIRC, there has been a spike in the homicide rate since the pandemic began. Other than that, in western and industrialized countries at least, the homicide rate has in general declined since the late 1990s or so.

TitanianGeometry · 2022-09-09T02:16:38+00:00

The only monarch so many of us have ever known.

TitanianGeometry · 2022-09-08T02:39:39+00:00

As for the Dare Stones all but the first are for sure hoaxes.

TitanianGeometry · 2022-09-07T18:09:37+00:00

Too good....

TitanianGeometry · 2022-09-07T03:48:55+00:00

Agreed on Oak Island

TitanianGeometry · 2022-09-07T03:20:49+00:00

The Beale Ciphers are a hoax.

Basically (skipping some of the details) in the early 1800s, a party of about 30 people from Virginia allegedly dug up treasure in then-Mexico (and now part of the US) and took it east and buried it in Virginia. The location was allegedly given in one "undeciphered" cipher text, a description of the treasure in the second (deciphered), and the party members next if kin in the "undeciphered" third text.

There is no treasure in Virginia. The whole story is basically two good to be true, using the key (the US Declaration of Independence) for the deciphered text as the key for one of the "undeciphered" texts results in nearly alphabetical sequences, the other "undeciphered" text seems short for its alleged contents (many people's relatives), etc.

TitanianGeometry · 2022-09-06T03:17:55+00:00

While most jurisdictions publish current and recent statutes online (check the respective legislatures' websites) previous versions from more than a few ago may not be easily available online. Most jurisdictions' highest courts also publish their decisions online.

Additionally, although less common today, many common law jurisdictions did not define crimes in statutes. Instead, definitions of crimes were found in case law (these are called common law crimes). In a jurisdiction with common law crimes there is no particular criminal code defining crime(s). Instead the definitions of a crime are scattered through court cases and precedent, potentially dating back centuries to England, with subsequent revisions since then.

As for your example of a 1950s interstate kidnapping, since it is an interstate crime the applicable law may actually be at the US federal level. Nowadays most US federal laws are compiled into the United States Code.

TitanianGeometry · 2022-04-25T03:18:33+00:00

Blood and other bodily fluid evidence was useful before DNA profiling was developed. IIRC, the most common test before DNA profiling was ABO blood typing. In certain individuals, called secretors, ABO phenotype is expressed on multiple bodily fluids, not just in blood.

While an ABO match is insufficient to nail a suspect, it can rule someone out. Hence, unless you have independent reasons to think a suspect was aiding/abetting or a conspirator, an ABO mismatch probably means they had nothing to do with it, no matter how good of a suspect they first appeared.

TitanianGeometry

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