Unsolved: Death Of Dave Bocks

(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.

ISSEI SAGAWA – “the Kobe Cannibal” – DEAD at 73

ISSEI SAGAWA – “the Kobe Cannibal” – DEAD at 73

Issei Sagawa, a Japanese murderer known as the “Kobe Cannibal”, died of pneumonia on November 24 2022 at the age of 73. His funeral was attended only by relatives, with no public ceremony planned, according to a statement from his younger brother and the publisher of the brother’s 2019 memoir. In 1981, 32 year old Sagawa, then a Japanese exchange student, murdered a young Dutch woman, Renée…

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The Cape Intruder

June 06, 2022

Cape Elizabeth is a small town in Maine, US, with a population of around 9,535 in 2020. Cape Elizabeth was known to be a desirable place to live, however, in 2005, the residents became terrified of an unidentified man who watched them as they slept. 

In 2005, what was described as a young man began to sneak into people’s homes in the area, watching them sleep. The strange part was that this man would never break or steal anything from the homes, he didn’t attack or touch anyone, just simply watched them sleep. 

Victims of the man who was dubbed “The Cape Intruder” or “Cape Trespasser” claimed they would wake up to find him standing over their beds, but he would flee the scene before they could catch him or even get a great look at him. 

A police sketch of the man came out, and many believed he was in his 20′s. The police received several calls from various people claiming they believed to know who the Cape Intruder was. Two of the people who called in actually named the same man, but after a while the incidents stopped. One police officer said that everyone who called in seems to think the sketch looks like someone they know or have seen around. 

While the Cape Intruder was active, a neighbourhood watch group would set up on Mitchell Road, where multiple houses had been targeted by the strange man. 

The Cape Intruder was never caught, and the incidents stopped suddenly. The case remains unsolved. 

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. 

Cattle thief hanged in effigy, Custer County, Montana, USA, 1939 - by Arthur Rothstein (1915 - 1985), American

In February of 1982 my folks and I went to helping my ailing uncle with his property that sat between Elmira NY and Ithaca. I was 14 at the time going on 15. Lots of wooded area at the time in the area. The small chicken farm we were on was encircled with woods. We were there for several months. One day my mom sent me to the store to get some milk and stuff. There was snow on the ground and the streets were just icy. It was bitter cold. That's kind of cold that bites at your bones and if you take in a deep breath it stung. The second way to get to the store outside of walking the winding roads was to cross through a wooded area and a couple of fields. I liked taking this route because I always saw deer and other wildlife.

I got all the way to the country store and was heading back. In the one field there was some old cut and abandoned trees scattered around and shattered limbs no one wanted to pick up. The ground was covered with snow and there were tracks about from deer, raccoons, rabbits and whatever else. Just animal tracks that cut cross the field. I stopped to lean against one fallen tree to warm my hands, blowing on them. The truck of this fallen pine was long, about 30' long. I was at the one end of it just leaning and doing all I could to warm up.

Just then the tree trunk started to rock and then roll. I jumped back and turned about. Thats when I saw. A hairy TALL, human figure. One ran was extended out and up, holding a thick limb of the tree and the creature was looking under where the trunk was.

I was scared so badly I started to urinate in my jeans which was rolling down my legs into my fleece lined boots. And I was tearing up for fear it was going to attack me. It was no more than 20 feet from me at the other end of the fallen tree trunk. It just kept that tree truck rolled back enough to see what was under there. I think he was looking for a rodent or something to eat. But he was holding it with one hand. Had he let go, the trunk would have moved back in place. I am not math wise when it comes to size and weight comparison but figure a trunk that was 20 foot long and about 4' in diameter. It was an old trunk and rotting but it was still heavy. I know I could not move it. If what I was looking at was a man in a suit looking to scaring me from crossing the field, he would have had to have sat for hours, if not days attaching hair to his skin. The wind was blowing and so I saw skin under the layers of hair. There were skin blemishes where there was no hair. I guess like pimples or warts or something like that. Its eyes were yellowish and pupils were dark, like brown. The hair varied in length around its body and head. On its face and neck it was very short and sparce. If this was someone in a suit, they did extensive research on how hair would lay throughout the body. Also his toes moved individually in the snow with tendons or veins that were moving under his skin. So, if this was someone in a suit, he was walking around barefoot with huge feet. Not wearing fake boots. I have seen people wearing monkey ape suits in movies and at Halloween. And this was NOTHING at all like that.

I am not sure if I made a noise or not but it looked at me. Then looked back under the tree. It was more curious what was under the tree. I have no idea how long I stood there just staring. Then there was a noise from across the field that startled me and when I looked there were two others along the tree line walking. They were much too far to make out details. Just two ash-brown hairy human figures walking along the tree line. Walking just like a person would but the snow was no hamperment at all for them. They never went down on all four and one even reached out and moved part of a branch that was in his/her way like a hunter or hiker would. Bears do not do that. The one close to me stopped looking under the tree, let it roll back in place and just walked off into the trees that was to the left of where I was facing. The two in the back of the field, I have no what happen to them. My focus was on the one near me. When I gain some courage (a good 2 minutes of not moving) I slowly walked up to where it was standing before, wiping the tears from my face and saw its footprints in the snow. And they were almost twice the size of mine, which at the time was size 8-9. I stood there shaking for a bit till I felt it was safe. I did not run but walked fast till I got close enough to home where I felt safe to run. Then I bolted like a bat out of hell. I remember the terror I had in my heart and praying "Please don't come back" over and over.

Mom was angry and not believing a word I said. I also got a butt tanning from my father later on. I lost my gloves and the groceries, and my pants and boots were "stained" That's all my folks cared about. I kept saying it was a "hairy caveman." No one would believe me. I lived in fear for two months after that, for fear of running into them again and I never crossed the woods and fields again. I never heard of bigfoot or sasquatch or anything like that before. Years later I learned what I saw when I was working at the library back on Long Island and found a book on Bigfoot (The Big Foot Casebook). To date I still get nightmares if I dwell on the topic too long. Being I am an artist, I have tried to draw it/them countless of times and yet my renderings never come close. The closest depiction I have ever seen to what I saw was the costumed actors on the documentary "Manbeast: Man or legend" with Peter Byrne. Just taller and a bit more wide. I remember the first time I saw the special and the whole encounter came flooding back to me and the nightmares increased. Today I volunteer at the Woodland Park Zoo here in Seattle. I spend some time with the gorillas, siamangs, colobus, patas monkeys, orangs and other simians but I can state that what I saw was none of these species.

You win. This was INSANE to read. First, I’m really sorry your parents reacted that way. If my kid came home sobbing with pissed pants, I’d at least think something happened. That’s pretty old for a spanking, too. And the nightmares that followed? Have you tried trauma therapy? If this is triggering I’m really sorry, but it sounds a lot like the most famous picture of Bigfoot, patty. The photo is still not explainable, for reasons I do not know because I haven’t looked them up… I believe in Bigfoot 100%. My mom saw it in the woods in Missouri (and ran the hell away) and sometimes when I’m out in the woods on my ranger, I hear things. The other night I heard a huge noise in the woods. It could have been a cougar or a black bear, but it sounded a lot bigger. There are Sasquatch sightings in Missouri, as well as all around America. Is working with primates kind of therapeutic for you? I hope, and I’m sorry you had that experience, though it’s very valuable to have and share with the Sasquatch community.

The Cannibal House Part 2 (pt. 1) — This is part of Armin Meiwes’ kitchen, where he cooked the flesh of Bernd Brandes, his voluntary victim, over a period of 10 months. Upon Meiwes’ arrest, the police found 20 kgs (44 lbs) of human flesh stored in this deep freezer amongst boxes of pizza. If you look closely, you can see still the police label on the freezer from when it was taken into evidence (dated 12.12.02). 

Laurie Dann’s upbringing in an affluent Chicago suburb appeared unremarkable at first glance. However, beneath her seemingly normal exterior lay a complex and troubled individual. 

Known for her insecurities, Laurie resorted to plastic surgery at a young age in an attempt to alter her appearance. Although she attended the University of Arizona for some time, she never completed her degree. It was during her stint as a cocktail waitress at Green Acres Country Club that she crossed paths with Russell Dann, scion of a wealthy family. The pair became inseparable, eventually marrying in September 1982 and fulfilling Laurie’s lifelong dream of residing in a grand mansion.

Yet, as their relationship progressed, Russell began to notice increasingly odd behaviors from his wife. Laurie’s idiosyncrasies included storing makeup in the microwave, randomly tossing money into her car’s backseat, and putting away wet clothes. Her eccentricities gradually worsened, leading to her complete withdrawal from the outside world. She refused to leave the house and neglected basic household chores. 

The once-promising marriage reached a calamitous climax in September 1986 when Russell awoke to the searing pain of an ice pick stabbing him. Convinced Laurie was his assailant, he promptly alerted the police. Adding weight to his claim, a store clerk testified that Laurie had recently purchased an ice pick. However, as Russell had not witnessed the attack while he slept, the charges against Laurie were eventually dropped. The couple divorced shortly thereafter. During the divorce proceedings, Laurie’s ex-boyfriend from five years prior became the target of threatening phone calls in which she falsely claimed to be pregnant with his child. The harassment ceased only when her ex-boyfriend’s lawyer intervened and contacted her parents.

Following her departure from the marital home, Laurie attempted to pursue a career as a babysitter. However, her venture quickly soured as she faced accusations of theft and vandalism, including slashing furniture, rugs, and curtains in clients’ homes. With this business idea in ruins, she sought refuge in a dormitory on a college campus. Unfortunately, her stay there was also fraught with erratic behavior. Laurie hid rotting meat inside furniture and deposited trash in other students’ rooms. 

Seeking a fresh start, she moved to another dorm in Madison, Wisconsin, where her presence earned her the nickname “elevator lady.” Witness accounts painted a disturbing picture of Laurie aimlessly riding the elevator for hours on end. She continued her pattern of leaving decomposing meat around the building and even startled onlookers by appearing naked in communal areas. Just one month after her arrival, a dorm room was set ablaze. Although suspicions were raised about Laurie’s involvement, no concrete evidence was found, and she was never charged.

By this point, Laurie’s mental state had deteriorated to a point of no return. Tragically, appropriate professional intervention was never sought. After threatening a fellow student and slashing his clothing, Laurie turned to a more sinister act. She baked buns laced with arsenic and distributed them to various fraternity houses and local residences. 

In a separate incident, she attempted to take two children from a former babysitting client to a fair, but fortunately, the children refused to consume the poisoned milk she offered them. The diluted arsenic in the treats she had distributed caused no harm. Laurie’s descent into chaos continued as she tried to set fire to a nearby daycare center before returning to the home of her former clients and setting it ablaze. The family managed to escape through a broken window just in time. 

Unfazed, Laurie proceeded to Hubbard Woods Elementary School armed with two handguns. Upon entering the building, she opened fire indiscriminately, killing 8-year-old Nicholas Corwin and critically injuring five others. After shedding her blood-soaked shorts and improvising a makeshift bag around her waist, Laurie fled the school. Her escape came to an abrupt end when she crashed her car into a tree. 

Seeking refuge, she broke into the home of Ruth and Phillip Andrews, holding the terrified family hostage for six harrowing hours. Laurie claimed she had killed her rapist and was now evading the police. In a desperate struggle, Phillip managed to wrestle the gun away from her, sustaining a gunshot wound to his chest in the process. Despite his injury, he staggered into the garden while his family sought safety. Alone in the Andrews’ residence, Laurie turned the gun on herself, ending her tumultuous life.

Judy Garland rose to an unimaginable fame at just 17-years-old when she starred as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. However, from the age of 13, Garland had starred in other MGM productions beforehand. Garland developed an eating disorder and a drug addiction courtesy of MGM who had branded her a “fat little pig with pigtails.” 

MGM put her on a strict diet and would even go as far as to physically remove food from her possession so that she could not consume it. She was only a young teenager when she developed an eating disorder, living on a diet of chicken soup, coffee, and cigarettes.

Garland had a gruelling schedule, sometimes even working up to 18 hours a day. To combat fatigue and hunger pangs, she would be piled with amphetamines and barbiturates. To help her sleep, she would be given sleeping tablets. It’s not much of a shock that Judy Garland became addicted to drugs and ultimately, they would cause her untimely demise at the age of 47.