Milwaukee Using Real Images Of Unidentified Dead To Help Solve Cold Cases
January 5, 2012 at 12:22 pm by Morbid
Milwaukee, WI – Milwaukee has joined Las Vegas as the only two U.S. cities who have a website featuring the real pictures of their unidentified dead.
They hope this will help them solve some of their cold cases instead of just relying on sketches and those creepy clay models that leave you standing in the furthest depths of uncanny valley.
If the site of dead adults, infants and fetuses in varying states of decay are your thing, then head on over to the Milwaukee medical examiner’s unidentified persons site and take a gander. For those of you with weak stomachs, let me warn you as these are the real deal and some of it is fascinasty™.
But no worries if you accidentally click the link, as your desktop won’t immediately be flooded with images of bloated corpses. Forensic investigator Michael Simley is aware of the sensitive nature of the photographs and places more than enough warnings on the site before you actually get to the meat.
Smiley is also aware of how desperate this seems, but says that in the 17 cases featured, they have simply run out of options.…
Continue ReadingEx-Police Officer Arrested For Child Abduction/Murder 50 Years Later
July 18, 2011 at 5:21 am by kniption
Sycamore, IL — Former police officer Jack Daniel McCullough, 71, is being held in Seattle on $3 million bail after investigators charged that, in 1957, he abducted and murdered a 7-year-old girl. Maria Ridulph disappeared Dec. 3, 1957, while playing with her friend, Kathy Chapman. Chapman, who was 8 at the time, reportedly told investigators at the time that she and Maria were under a corner streetlight when a young man she knew as “Johnny” offered them a piggyback ride. At the time, McCullough went by the name “John Tessier.”
Chapman, now 61, said that she ran home to get mittens and that when she returned, Maria and the man were gone. It was months later in April 1958 that two people hunting for mushrooms found her remains.
According to investigators, police suspected McCullough – who lived less than two blocks from the Ridulphs and who fit the description of the man said to have approached the girls. But McCullough seemed to have an alibi. He had claimed he took the train from Rockford to Chicago the day of the abduction for a military physical.…
Continue ReadingPolice Say Decade-Old Murder Of Oregon Teen Solved, Boyfriend Arrested
October 13, 2010 at 11:54 am by Morbid
COQUILLE, ORE – Police say that they have found the killer of an Oregon teenager whose murder has remained unsolved for a decade. Leah Freeman, 15, was walking home from a friend’s house on the evening of June 29, 2000, when she disappeared. The only clue left behind was a single tennis shoe found on the sidewalk. Searches were conducted but it wasn’t until Aug. 3, 2000 that her body would be found in a wooded area 8-miles away. An autopsy revealed that she died as a result of “homicidal violence.” Her boyfriend, Nick McGuffin, would be questioned as he was the one she was to meet that night, but lack of any solid evidence would lead to no charges being filed and the case going cold. That is until January when a cold case division took another look at the case and questioned witnesses again and re-analyzed evidence with today’s newer technologies. Long story short, Nick McGuffin, now 28, has been charged with her murder. He is currently being held on $2 million bail and has a status hearing scheduled for Thursday.…
Continue ReadingWoman Helps Solve ’93 Missing Person Case By Turning In Her Husband
September 28, 2010 at 2:16 pm by Morbid
PITTSBURGH – Bittersweet news for the friends and family of Laura Thompson, the 15-year-old single mother who went missing back in ’93. Thompson was last seen by her parents getting into a car with some men to go play cards and she was never heard from or seen since — most assuming she had simply run away. She is still listed on National Center for Missing and Exploited Children website along with an age progressed photo, but it is looking like she has been found. Two months ago, Shannon Marshall went to police and informed them that Thompson was dead. She had been raped and murdered and she had been present when her soon-to-be ex-husband, 39-year-old Joseph Marshall Jr., dug up her body back in ’93. She also claimed another man, 38-year-old Sean McDonough, was also involved and had been the one who raped the girl before she was murdered. Marshall helped police with their investigation into her claims, wearing a wiretap for a month, and on Monday both men were in police custody charged with murder.…
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On October 29, 1972, Ezra Cray and his 52-year-old blind wife, Annie Mae, were in bed. There was a knock at the door of their home at 4 Henry Street, Rochester, NY. Annie Mae went to the door, spoke with the person and went back to bed. Although blind, Annie was excellent at recognizing voices and Ezra believes she knew the caller or would not have spoken with him. Shortly after the knock at the door, Ezra heard a cracking sound and felt pain in his head. He awakened to a man standing over Annie Mae, beating her. He was once again knocked unconscious. A bloodied piece of wood about the size of a small log was found in the bedroom. Later, Ezra identified a person whom he believed was in the room that night. That person was James Kimble, a friend of son Tommie Cray. However, Kimble had an alibi which checked out and was dismissed as a suspect. That is until lab technicians recently matched his DNA to DNA on a blanket at the scene.…
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Salt Lake City , UT. - On the evening of September 10, 1998, 10-year-old Anna Palmer was sexually assaulted and stabbed numerous times in the neck, one wound nearly severing her spinal cord. This all took place on Anna’s front porch, on a busy street across from an elementary school where activities were occurring. Yet, there were no witnesses aside from a friend of Anna’s who told police a man she did not know followed the pair as they walked home from school that day. Luckily, fingernail scrapings from Anna were preserved and recent DNA testing produced a match to 31-year-old Matthew John Breck, a man currently residing in an Idaho prison for a 2001 conviction of sodomy/lewdness of a child under 16. He also lived down the street from Anna at the time of her murder. Breck now faces felony charges of aggravated murder, sexual abuse and child abuse. Hooray for technology. A sad footnote to this story is that Anna’s father never got over the death of his daughter, and will never see justice served.…
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Charlotte, NC – It was summer 1989, and Chrystal Taylor was sixteen. Not your normal sixteen, mind you. Chrystal was thirty-five in a sixteen year old’s body. She was living on the streets that summer – crashing with friends, dancing topless at a strip club in Charlotte, doing a little parking lot duty for extra cash. Her parents hadn’t seen her all summer when they called the police to report Chrystal missing on August 18, 1989. By then, Chrystal Taylor had been dead for almost two weeks. Apathy is the best word to describe it, I think, the total lack of concern that followed Chrystal Taylor’s disappearance. Her parents hadn’t seen her in ages. When she disappeared, her friends didn’t worry too much. Granted, they were teenagers, but they knew Chrystal. They figured she’d found some man to keep her for awhile, or was sleeping it off somewhere, or had left town. As teenagers do, they assumed that Chrystal was immortal, like they were, right? Wrong. On August 7, 1989, Chrystal left the strip club where she worked as a dancer.…
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