Mikhail Kalashnikov, The Man Who Created The AK-47 Assault Rifle, Wrote A Letter In Which He Professed

(this is a bit graphic) In Westphalia there's a horse museum which sounds delightful but in fact it's just row after row of incredibly macabre taxidermies that look like you're trying to toughen up the next generation of equine vets. There's an ancient horse grave with a graphic illustration of bronze age people beating that exact horse to death, there's a not-quite-right-looking taxidermy of a dam and foal of some extinct wild horse breed, there's the sliced up taxidermied head, there's Polydor (who's just taxidermied Polydor, they left him intact thank god), there's a dimly lit little room with a taxidermied mining pony hanging from the ceiling in a harness. Frankly I think we could've done with less taxidermy.

The Crimes of Kate Webster & Murder of Julia Thomas

June 19, 2023

In a two-storey villa in Richmond, London, a former teacher named Julia Martha Thomas lived. Having been widowed twice, she had lived on her own at 2 Mayfield Cottages in Park Road since 1873, after her second husband died. 

At the time, Julia was about 54 years old, and was described as well dressed and eccentric. She would often leave and travel around, and her friends would have no idea where she was for periods of time. These periods could last for a couple weeks or even months. 

Though Julia was not extremely wealthy, it is said she would often wear jewellery to make people believe she had money. It was also said that Julia was not the nicest employer, often making it hard for her to keep a live-in domestic maid for long periods of time. 

On January 29, 1879, a woman named Kate Webster was employed as Julia’s servant. Kate was born around 1849 in Killanne. There is not much information known about Kate’s life, but it was believed that she had claimed to have been married to a sea captain called Webster and had 4 children with him. Kate said that both her husband and all of her children had died.

Kate had also spent time in prison in Wexford in December 1864 for larceny (stealing) around the age of 15. Kate came to England in 1867, and was sentenced to 4 years of penal servitude for larceny in Liverpool in February 1868. 

It is often hard to know much about Kate’s life because it appears her reputation is one full of deceit. Kate claimed to have been released from prison in January 1872, and later became friends with a family named Porter. On April 18,1874, Kate gave birth to a son, but the father is unknown as she named 3 possible men that it could be. 

Kate moved around quite a bit and used a number of aliases, including Webb, Gibbs, Gibbons and Lawler. She was again convicted of larceny in May 1875, facing 36 charges. Again, in February 1877 she was convicted and sentenced to 12 months in prison for larceny. Her son was taken care of by her friend Sarah Crease during the times Kate was in prison. Sarah worked as a charwoman for a woman named Miss Loder.

In January 1879 Kate took over for Sarah when she became ill and while working, Miss Loder who knew Julia was looking for a servant, recommended Kate. It is believed that when Julia met Kate she did not ask any questions about her past. 

It didn’t take long for the two women to begin despising one another. Julia would often complain that Kate’s work was not satisfactory, and it got to the point where Julia would try to get friends to stay in the house with her because she did not like being alone with Kate. About one month after beginning to work for her, on February 28, Kate was fired. 

However, Kate had convinced Julia to allow her to work for a few more days until March 2. 

On March 2, Julia and Kate got into a big argument as Kate had made Julia late for her service at the local church. When Julia returned home from church around 9pm, Kate later confessed that they had fought more and Kate ended up throwing Julia from the top of the stairs to the bottom. Kate then choked her.

Julia hitting the ground made a large thud, which neighbours did hear, but they ignored it as they believed it to only be a chair falling over. Kate then began to dismember and boil and burn Julia’s remains. 

Within the next couple of days, Kate cleaned Julia’s house and clothes. She also began packing the remains into a black Gladstone bag and a corded wooden box. There was not enough room for the head or one of the feet, so Kate threw the foot into a garbage heap and buried the head under the stables, close to Julia’s house. 

On March 4, Kate went to see her old neighbours, the Porter’s, who she had not seen in 6 years. She was wearing Julia’s clothes and was carrying the black bag that she had put some of Julia’s remains in. Kate called herself “Mrs. Thomas” and told the Porters she had married, had a child and was widowed. She also told them she had been left a house in Richmond. 

Kate asked Porter and his son if they wanted to go to a pub, and while doing so she assumingly dropped the bag of remains into the River Thames, where it was never found. She also asked Robert, the son, if he would help her carry a heavy box to the station. Kate then dropped the box into the Thames. 

The next day, on March 5, the box was washed up next to the river bank. The man who found it originally believed there to be items of a burglary and when opening the box he found what appeared to be body parts wrapped in brown paper. A doctor was called immediately to determine the remains appeared to be that of a woman. 

Around this time, a foot and ankle were found in Twickenham, where Kate had thrown the foot that wouldn’t fit. The remains were all believed to be from the same person but there was no way to identify said person. The remains were burned on March 19 and there was speculation that the remains had been used for anatomical purposes. 

Kate kept living at Julia’s house, posing as her, and on March 9, she made an agreement with a man named John Church to sell Julia’s furniture to him for his pub. 

By March 18, neighbours suspicions kept raising as they realized they had not seen Julia around for almost 2 weeks. Julia’s neighbour asked who had Julia’s furniture removed from the property and they replied that it was Julia herself, indicating Kate. Kate, now knowing that her charade was up, fled back to Ireland. 

Police were called to the property and found blood stains, burned bones and a letter left by Kate that had her home address on it. A wanted notice was put up and detectives soon found Kate and her son back in Ireland. 

Kate was arrested on March 29, after the head constable in Wexford recognized her to be the same person they had arrested 14 years prior for larceny. 

Kate’s trial began on July 2, 1879 at the Central Criminal Court. The case was huge – people from all over were very interested in Kate and her crimes, with the trial attendance being crowded. Kate had actually tried to implicate John Church and her friend Porter, though both men had solid alibis. 

She pleaded not guilty, and the defence argued she could not be capable of murder due to her having a young son. After only an hour and 15 minutes of deliberation the jury decided that Kate was guilty of murder and it had been premeditated. Kate actually pleaded and said she was pregnant, trying to avoid the death penalty. 

Kate was taken in for an examination to determine if she truly was pregnant, and it was said that she was not “quick with child” though that meant she could still be pregnant. 

Right before she was executed, Kate made a statement stating that the father of her child was the one who participated in the murder of Julia and was the reason she had lived a life of crime to begin with. On July 28, the night before her execution, she recanted the statement, taking responsibility, and also stating that John Church, Porter and her child’s father were not to blame. 

On July 29, 1879, Kate Webster was hanged at 9am at Wandsworth Prison. She was buried in an unmarked grave in one of the prison’s yards. The crowd waiting at her execution cheered when a black flag was raised over the prison, meaning the execution had gone through. 

Julia’s property was auctioned off, the day after Kate had been executed. John Church managed to still get Julia’s furniture, as well as the knife that she had been dismembered with. Julia’s house was unoccupied until 1897, and even then, servants did not really want to work there given the history. 

There have been folktales of a “ghostly nun” that has been seen over the place where Julia is buried. 

In 1952, Sir David Attenborough and his wife Jane bought a house by the Mayfield Cottages and the Hole in the Wall pub. The pub had closed in 2007, but was going to be redeveloped. On October 22, 2010, workmen doing an excavation at the rear of the old pub uncovered a woman’s skull. 

It had been buried underneath the foundations and was immediately believed to be the skull of Julia Thomas as her head was never found. Carbon dating estimated the skull to be from sometime between 1650 and 1880, though it was on top of a layer of Victorian tiles, suggesting it was from the end of this estimate. 

The skull had fractures that matched with someone being thrown down stairs, and also had low collagen levels, possibly from being boiled. In July 2011, it was confirmed that it was the skull of Julia Thomas, 132 years after she had been murdered. 

The Mysterious Deaths of Mary Morris and Mary Morris

May 23, 2022

On October 12, 2000, Mary Lou Morris (48 years old) left her house to go to work, where she worked as a bank loan officer and was never seen again. Her husband Jay tried calling her throughout the day, but did not hear back from her. Mary Lou also never showed up to work. 

A badly burned body was found in the remains of a car shortly after and the body was identified as Mary Lou Morris. She was found only three miles from her home. Because her body had been so badly burned it was hard to tell what her cause of death had been, and homicide wasn’t really on the table because there was no reason for it. Mary had no enemies and appeared to be well liked. 

Three days after Mary Lou Morris was found deceased, the body of another woman was found deceased in her car in almost the same spot and nearly the same circumstances as Mary Lou Morris had been found in. The strangest part? This woman was also named Mary Morris, Mary McGinnis Morris to be exact and she had been 39 years old at the time of her death. 

Mary McGinnis Morris was a nurse practitioner who was in charge of various clinics and it was discovered that she had actually been afraid of a man she worked with. One night, Mary had found her office in disarray, and noticed that on the man’s desk it said, “Death to her” written on it. Mary told her husband, Mike, that she had wanted a gun to be able to protect herself, and she kept it under her car’s driver seat. 

A few weeks later, Mary McGinnis Morris met with her friend, a woman named Laurie Gemmell to give her an allergy shot. Laurie claimed that Mary seemed fine and told her she was staying at the clinic for a few more hours, then she was going to run errands before going home and making dinner. Later that day, Laurie said she got an alarming phone call from Mary, telling her that she had seen someone in the drug store that gave her the creeps. 

Mary told Laurie she was going to go back to work, sign off on her computer and go home. Twelve minutes after this phone call Mary called 911. She was frantic, claiming she had been abducted and attacked. She was found dead shortly after this and it was determined that she had been beaten and then shot to death. The killer staged the scene to make it look like a suicide, and investigators found blood on the passenger door, that was left open with the keys outside of the car. 

The coworker Mary was afraid of and her husband Mike became suspects. Mike Morris claimed he was at the movies with his daughter at the time of the murder, but he did refuse to take a polygraph test and did not allow his daughter to be interviewed. He hired an attorney after the murder and investigators discovered that Mike and Mary were having problems in their marriage. 

Shortly before Mary was murdered, Mike had confronted her about an alleged affair she was having with a friend. There was also a $700,000 life insurance policy on Mary and Mike had called Mary’s cell phone around the time that she was murdered. The call lasted 4 minutes, and it was believed that Mike had been calling the killer, though Mike claimed he called Mary and she just didn’t answer and also that the 4 minutes was a mistake the phone company made; the call did not last 4 minutes according to Mike.

Because there were so many similarities between Mary Lou Morris and Mary McGinnis Morris, many theories have arose as to how two women, living in the same area, with the same name, could be killed only days apart. 

One of the first theories was that a contract had been put on Mary McGinnis Morris’ life, but the killer had accidentally killed Mary Lou Morris. Realizing the mistake, the hitman then went and killed the intended target, Mary McGinnis Morris, a few days later. A person had apparently called into a Houston newspaper who said that this was true. This makes sense because the two Mary’s lived in close proximity to one another and were similar in appearance. 

Investigators believe that these two murders are just a coincidence, but many of the women’s families do not. If the cases are not related, then there are no suspects in the death of Mary Lou Morris. The coworker is the obvious suspect in Mary McGinnis Morris’ death. 

A strange part about Mary Lou Morris’ case is that 6 months after her death, her husband received a $2000 bill for his wife’s phone card. Police eventually traced this phone card to a 16 year old girl who told them she had found the purse with the card and other belongings the month prior, just sitting in a parking lot of a Galveston convenience store. Mary Lou’s family did not recognize the purse as being hers. Jay Morris also received three phone calls from someone asking for Mary and the caller has never been identified. 

Is it possible these two women were killed coincidentally only days apart? 

Titus Andronicus: performed in Japanese, it is a 2006 production by the Ninagawa Company staged in Stratford-upon-Avon. There was no stage blood used in this production, instead ribbons of red silk come out of mouths, throats and hands.

Tamara Samsonova, known as the “Granny Ripper,” defied the common stereotype of a serial killer, as she was a 68-year-old grandmother. Her arrest in 2015 shocked the world and launched one of the most bizarre true crime cases in history.

Authorities arrested Samsonova on suspicion of murdering 79-year-old Valentina Ulanova, whose dismembered body was found in a pond. Samsonova shared an apartment with Ulanova and was caught on CCTV disposing of her body, which led to her becoming a suspect. When police searched the apartment, they discovered a gruesome diary containing details of not just this murder, but several others.

The diary contained Samsonova’s confession to killing at least 13 people, including her husband, whom she murdered in 2005, and another tenant. She described how she dismembered their bodies with a knife in the bathroom and disposed of the remains in different locations. Shockingly, Samsonova also confessed to cannibalizing her victims and getting rid of unwanted body parts and organs.

The Puzzling Case of Mateusz Kawecki

January 02, 2023

Mateusz Kawecki was a 30 year old man from Poland who had been working in Hanover, Germany as a construction worker. He lived with his father who also worked in Hanover. 

On March 28, 2018, Mateusz went to Poland to see his pregnant fiancé, who he was in a long distance relationship with at the time. His fiancé was about to give birth, and lived in a village called Lipia Góra, Poland. Mateusz began driving his 1998 BMW 525 around 11:30 pm to make it to the village. He was supposed to arrive there between 8-9 am the next morning, March 29. Mateusz never made it. 

Mateusz’s father spoke to him on March 29, around 10:30 am, and Mateusz told his father there was really bad traffic jams on his route and he was currently stuck in Szzecin at the time, which is a town on the Polish-German border. Mateusz had about 133 miles to go before he would reach Lipia Góra. Around this time Mateusz sent his fiancé a text message saying he would arrive in about 2 more hours. 

However, after not hearing from him, and several missed phone calls, his fiancé became worried and tried to contact Mateusz’s sister, Katarzyna Piotrkowicz around 5 pm, but could not get a hold of her either. 

Later in the evening Mateusz’s mom went to the police to let them know no one had any contact with her son for quite some time, but the police discouraged her from filing a missing persons report, claiming it was too early to do so. 

A few more days went by and in early April 2018, Mateusz’s family officially reported him as a missing person in Germany and Poland. The Germany police refused to investigate, claiming the Polish police were on the case. His family asked Polish police if they could locate Mateusz’s cellphone, but they were unable to do so as his sim card was German. It was also said that his cellphone had been on for a couple of days after he stopped having contact. 

The German police eventually began investigating but could not locate the cellphone either, as Mateusz had gone missing in Poland. Polish police later said that Mateusz’s phone was never connected to any networks so no one was sure how he had spoken to his father earlier on March 29.

Katarzyna, Mateusz’s sister, said that officials believed her brother had never crossed the German-Polish border as CCTV monitoring at the border showed Mateusz had never entered Poland. Mateusz’s family became frustrated with police efforts, and began their own search, including putting up posters with Mateusz’s picture around. The family spoke on TV several times in Germany and Poland claiming the police were not doing enough. 

However, the case took a strange turn on September 12, 2018, almost 6 months after the last known contact from Mateusz, when a neighbour went to Mateusz’s mothers house to ask about her barn, claiming that a horrible smell was coming from their barn since July and neighbours were starting to complain. 

The neighbour asked if he could check the barn and she agreed. Half of the barn was walled off, which created a room. There was an attic level on top of the room. The neighbour climbed up and saw a pile of clothes in the attic space. When the neighbour checked more thoroughly he found a severed head and torso. The remains were too decomposed to be identified. 

It was discovered that there were two rope nooses hanging from the roof and a backpack on the floor which was later identified as belonging to Mateusz. DNA evidence eventually determined that the remains were indeed that of Mateusz Kawecki. Some of his teeth had been knocked out and stuck to his clothes which had bloody patches on them. 

Inside the backpack were a Polish water bottle with cigarette butts inside and an orange juice box. Mateusz’s family claimed he never drank orange juice. A cellphone was also found in the backpack and showed there had been one call made to Mateusz’s uncle on March 30, 2018, but it appeared to be an accidental call as it lasted for less than a second and never actually went through. 

There was no DNA of another person found on any of Mateusz’s items. The police believed that this was a suicide and refused to investigate further, despite the families pleas. It was believed that Mateusz had planned his death and there was no evidence of foul play. 

Four days after Mateusz’s body was found, his family found his shoe in the barn with his detached foot still inside. This determined that the police hadn’t even searched the barn properly according to his family. 

Prosecutors gathered lots of evidence, including DNA, and an analysis of Mateusz’s cellphone. German police got security camera footage and searched Mateusz’s apartment in Hanover. All of this evidence was reviewed by experts in Warsaw. 

Prosecutors believe that Mateusz lied to his family on the day he disappeared. He had not been in Szczecin when he’d spoken to his father and was not driving at the time the phone call happened. According to them, Mateusz had still been in Germany according to the receipts found with his belongings. 

It is believed that Mateusz took a train to the German border, in Frankfurt an der Oder and walked over a bridge to the Polish town of Slubice about 24 hours after telling his family he was in Poland. Prosecutors believe he checked into a hotel in Slubice with another person. 

Mateusz then took a train to Warsaw the next day, followed by a bus to Zamość, which is the largest town close to his home village, Hutków. He arrived in Zamość around midnight, but it is unknown how he got to Hutków. 

Mateusz’s car had never been found despite a search for it, and there was never any evidence found indicating it had been bought or driven by a new owner. They keys to his BMW were also never found, but his wallet was in the backpack that was found in the barn. 

The attic where the body was found was visible from the ground, so it didn’t make sense that Mateusz had been there for months without his family noticing. Mateusz’s family also said that they had used the barn in the summer of 2018. 

Mateusz’s cousin, Edyta Dabska claimed the family does not think Mateusz was hanging in the barn because no one had seen him. 

To this day it is unknown how Mateusz got to the barn from Zamość and if he was in the barn for months how would his family not notice? There are so many unanswered questions in this case and hopefully someday it will make more sense. 

Juana Barraza (1957 -) is a Mexican former professional wrestler and serial killer, dubbed La Mataviejitas (The Old Lady Killer). She was born in Epazoyucan, Hidalgo, a rural area north of Mexico City. Barraza’s mother, Justa Samperio, was an alcoholic who reportedly exchanged her to a man for three beers. The man raped her repeatedly while in his care, and she became pregnant with his son. She had four children in total, although her eldest son died from injuries sustained in a mugging. Prior to her arrest, Barraza was a professional wrestler under the ring name of La Dama del Silencio (The Lady of Silence). She had a strong interest with lucha libre, a form of Mexican masked professional wrestling.

The first murder attributed to Mataviejitas has been dated variously to the late 1990s and to a specific killing on November 17, 2003. The authorities and the press have given various estimates as to the total number of the killer’s victims, with estimates ranging from 24 to 49 deaths. All of Barraza’s victims were women aged 60 or over, many of whom lived alone. Barraza bludgeoned or strangled them before robbing them.

Bernardo Bátiz, the chief prosecutor in Mexico City, initially profiled the killer as having “a brilliant mind, [being] quite clever and careful," and suggested that the killer probably struck after gaining the trust of the intended victim. Investigating officers suspected that the killer posed as a government official, offering victims the chance to sign up for welfare programs.

The search for Barraza was complicated by conflicting evidence. At one point, the police hypothesized that two killers might be involved. An odd coincidence also distracted the investigation: at least three of Barraza’s victims owned a print of an eighteenth-century painting by French artist Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Boy in A Red Waistcoat. #destroytheday

https://www.instagram.com/p/BwHr2owhoju/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1qhrlhxx3mjif

Jane Bielawski and her doll “Missy”. Following the suspicious death of some of her playmates in New York tenement, police attempted to interview Jane. According to reports, the young girl went ‘crazy’ and accused her doll of the murders, before throwing the doll out of her apartment window while screaming “Bad dolly. Naughty dolly!” Jane was taken to Bloomingdale Asylum to be treated for ‘hysterica’. She was never to leave the institution, dying there an old woman in 1968.