Also, even when a crime is horrendous, true crime means we're talking about real people, and I don't want to treat tragedy as entertainment unless I can do so ethically.
That being said... I do find some crimes particularly horrifying. As I said in my post about True Crime and Women, I enjoy true crime as it helps my anxiety when I can come to understand something, knowledge is power after all. But, as a result, the cases that I find the creepiest, the ones that get under my skin, are the ones that I can't explain.
Rape, torture, cannibalism, these are all horrible acts, but they can be understood. Whether it's about power, paranoid delusions or sexual gratification, as unconscionable as these acts can be, they're all entirely explicable. And with explanation comes understanding, perhaps even mastery to the point that we can potentially reduce these crimes before they occur. That's the comfort one can get from true crime. But not all crimes can be explained, not by me anyway. Thankfully, they're few and far between, but there are five cases that stick in my mind, because no matter how I look at it, they refuse to make sense to me.
Before we get to them, a TRIGGER WARNING: for frank, in some cases detailed discussions of horrific crimes involving violence, mutilation, sexual abuse, cannibalism, torture, child abuse and death.
I haven't included trigger warnings for most of my posts since discussing war crimes and human rights violations is pretty obviously likely to be triggering, so I didn't feel it necessary. However, especially after my post on true crime and its broad appeal, I recognize that there are many different forms of discussions of true crime. So, consider today's discussion on the "extreme" end of the spectrum, since these are the kinds of true crimes that give people nightmares, and my research often took me to "worst of the worst" lists, so be forewarned... this isn't for the faint of heart.
But, if you are used to more extreme true crime, you may find this list confusing. There are several names that pop up a lot in "worst stories" lists for true crime which do not appear in this list. You may be thinking "Where's Junko, or Dahmer, what about Toybox, has he never heard of Schlosser or Yates?" to which I'll say, I do know those cases and they are horrible, but this list isn't actually about the most extreme or horrific crimes that were committed.
[Editor's Note: If you've not heard of the cases I've referenced, but curiosity is getting the better of you, I have it on good authority that Bailey Sarian is a youtuber and true crime commentator who talks about even those cases in a way that's more approachable.]This is about the cases that I cannot understand. Horrible though those cases were, they're easily explained by extreme misogyny to the point of dehumanization, extreme sexual deviancy and mental illness exacerbated by religion. They're horrible, but they make sense if you can understand how these killers think. I'm focusing wholly and solely on the cases that I cannot make sense of. On that note, I've wasted enough time, let's get started.
5. The Weepy-Voiced Killer
The Crime: At first glance, Paul Michael Stephani is just another serial killer. Between 1981 and 1982, he assaulted five women, killing three. His first victim was Karen Potack, a student who studied at the University of Stevens Point, where Stephani worked as a janitor; on New Year's Eve of 1980 he beat her with a tire iron so severely that she suffered brain injury, he then stripped her naked and left her body by the railroad tracks. His second victim was Kimberly Compton, a recent graduate who was hoping to move to the big city, when she visited a diner and was approached by Stephani who offered to show her around; she was stabbed 61 times with an ice-pick and dumped by an incomplete freeway. His third victim was Kathleen Greening, a woman that he drowned in her own bathtub, although not much is known about why or how they met, as her death as initially ruled an accident. His fourth victim was Barbara Simons, a woman who was just out drinking and dancing at the Hexagon Bar, where she met a kind man, Stephani, who offered to take her home; she was stabbed at least a hundred times and her body was found on the banks of the Mississipi River. His final victim, Denise Williams, was a sex worker that Stephani hired, but after offering to take her home, Denise became suspicious when he was driving to a dark, secluded street; when Stephani began stabbing her, she smashed his head with a glass bottle and screamed, which alerted a man nearby who wrestled Stephani, and whilst her attempted killer fled, Denise survived the attack.
The Mystery: The reason why Stephani is called "weepy-voiced" is because after committing his crimes, Stephani had a tendency to call the police. That's not too unusual, as some serial killers call police so that they can gain notoriety for their crimes, and the most brazen of them will taunt the cops for failing to capture them. But, Stephani wasn't taunting, he was crying and clearly upset. He would apologize, beg police to catch him and expressed remorse for what he did. In one call, which you can listen to yourself, if you're so inclined, in one call, he's recorded as saying: "Don't talk, just listen. I'm sorry for what I did to Compton, I couldn't help it. I don't know why I had to stab her. I am so upset about it. I keep getting drunk every day and I can't believe I did it, it's like a big dream... I can't think of being locked up, if I get locked up, I'll rather kill myself than get locked up. I'll try not to kill anyone else."
Of course, there's the possibility that this is just a weird form of taunting... but, Stephani gave details about his murders, even telling them where to find the bodies as well as the murder weapon used, and if you listen to the calls, he sounds genuinely distressed. For that reason, I simply cannot understand why he did what he did. He implies that he feels compelled to kill and wants to stop, yet he keeps doing it. One theory is that killing is a paraphilia, and after fulfilling that fantasy he would get a post-coital clarity, coming to his senses after the fact... but the reason why I don't find that convincing is that his last victim, Denise, was a sex worker, and reportedly he only tried to kill her after her services, so it doesn't seem like a paraphilia. I don't know what kind of person can stab a person over sixty times... without fully wanting to do it. It doesn't make any sense to me.
4. The Arkhangelsk Cannibal
The Crime: Eduard Valerievich Seleznev lived on the streets of Arkhangelsk, Russia. He wasn't exactly an innocent man, having been imprisoned for a double-murder in 2002 not long after losing his job, but after a 13-year prison sentence he was released back into the public. However, Seleznev went straight back to the streets. He occasionally would sleep in homeless shelters, but he usually lived on the street where he would kill, cook and eat local birds, cats, dogs and other small vermin that he found just to survive. But, according to Seleznev himself, he found himself hungering for human flesh. In March 2006, he attacked a fellow homeless man with a knife as he slept, then used an axe to dismember his corpse. He cut off several pieces, which he cooked and ate, then wrapped the rest of the body in garbage bags and threw it in the river. He also killed and ate another man around this time, but information is lacking, as this happened in Russia, and investigators struggled to identify what remains they could find, due to large pieces missing. However, two years later, March 2018, Seleznev moved into the apartment of another man he knew and promptly killed, cooked, cannibalized and discarded the remains in the same manner as the first, although this time he stored some of the meat in the freezer, and lived in the apartment. When family of the victim came looking for the missing man, Seleznev claimed he'd found a job and left him to look after the apartment, and when they found strange meat in the freezer, Seleznev claimed that it was "raw fish". The family became incredibly suspicious, especially when they found IDs belonging neither to Seleznev nor the man who owned the apartment, and they contacted police.
The Mystery: Cannibalism is, in a word, gross. However, there's three main reasons why people engage in cannibalism. It could be out of starvation/desperation, it could be a sexual fetish, or it could be madness - there's many stories of unmedicated, paranoid or schizotypical persons who randomly attack and eat people (often their faces, weirdly enough). As gross as all of this is, there is usually some kind of reason behind it. For Seleznev, although he claimed to hear voices, after his arrest he was psychoanalyzed and they found that he was sane. There's no evidence of it being a sexual fetish, the most reasonable then appears to be starvation/desperation, as he was living on the street. However, there's two reasons to dispute that. Firstly, he only killed three people in two years, and two of those were before he had access to a fridge, and he said he survived eating animals he had caught, so it doesn't make sense that killing and eating a person would be necessary for survival. But what really boggles my mind and makes this all the more disturbing... Seleznev didn't have any teeth.
The reason he cooked his victims is because he would boil them until they were tender enough that he didn't have to chew - some sources even claim he liquified them (although, I think that's a translation error as I can't substantiate it, and most sources say he simply boiled them), so even if he was desperate, human meat is not easy to cook, kill and eat, especially if you don't have any teeth. Not to mention, there's something deeply unsettling about the idea of someone wanting to bite into you, who physically can't, and I admit it's partially why I so easily dismiss the sexual fetish theory, but either way, this is a case that I struggle to wrap my head around.
3. The Lawson Family Massacre
The Crime: On Christmas day, 1929, the Lawson family was celebrating the holiday at their North Carolina home; Charlie Lawson, Fannie Lawson and their children. Two of the girls, Carrie, aged 12, and Maybell, aged 7, were to set off to visit their aunt and uncle, when their father, Charlie Lawson, took a shotgun and waited for them near the property's tobacco barn. When they were within range, he shot them both down and ensured they were dead by bludgeoning them to death with a piece of timber. Charlie then returned to the house, where his wife Fannie was waiting on the porch, and he shot her dead as well. His eldest daughter, Marie, aged 17, heard the shot and screamed, and Charlie quickly killed her. Two of his youngest sons James, aged 4, and Raymond, aged 2, heard the commotion, and tried to find somewhere to hide, but Charlie hunted them down and shot them dead as well. The last of his family left in the house was Mary Lou, his 4-month-old daughter, whom he beat to death. After this massacre, Charlie took all of the bodies of his family members, and laid them out in the barn on their backs with their arms folded over their chests and rocks for pillows. Finally, he walked into the woods with his shotgun and after pacing around a tree for hours, he finally killed himself.
The Mystery: We're not sure why Charlie annihilated his entire family, but the leading theory is that he had molested his eldest daughter, Marie, and was hiding his crimes before her pregnancy was discovered. Whether that's true or not, familicide is surprisingly well understood. The psychology of this kind of massacre is sadly common, and when not due to hatred or paranoia, it's usually due to shame. It's when a father fails at his duty as caregiver and leader, and so kills his entire family in some disturbed attempt to save them from the shame and hardship of living with a failure as their lord and master, and then he will either kill himself or run away. This could be due to losing a job, or financial hardship, but in a large number of cases (which is why it's theorized here), it's because the father impregnates one or more of his daughters and decides to kill everyone to hide his shameful acts. So, what's the mystery here? Well, Charlie Lawson didn't kill his entire family. He killed his wife and six of his children, but he had seven children. His eldest son, Arthur Lawson, was nineteen years old and he was spared, and it's not because Charlie forgot about him or that he lived elsewhere - John Arthur Lawson lived with the rest of his family, but Charlie sent his son on an errand prior to the massacre. Apparently, Arthur and Charlie had gone hunting that morning, and Charlie sent his son to go buy some more shells for the gun. And that's what confuses me... if he was truly destroying his family to hide some shame or secret, why would he leave one child alive? It's not sexism, he killed all his other sons, and since he killed a four-month-old it seems impossible that he thought he was "the most innocent" of whatever shame he saw in his family. Some people believe that since Arthur is taller than his father, he was worried that his son could have overpowered him, but I don't completely buy that because he had a shotgun and the two were isolated, as they went out hunting alone. I'm not upset that he left a child alive, if anything it's a small mercy after this horrific act, but I just can't make sense of why he'd let him live, but kill everyone else, it confuses any sort of motive that people like him have.
2. The Villisca Axe Murders
The Crime: At 508 East 2nd St, at or after midnight the morning of June 10 in 1912; the entire Moore family and two young girls who were visiting their home that night, were brutally murdered. The day had been perfectly normal, Josiah and Sarah were a rich and well-liked couple in their town, along with their four children, Herman Montgomery, aged 11; Mary Katherine, aged 10; Arthur Boyd, aged 7; & youngest, Paul Vernon, aged just 5. They had spent the day at their local church, which was hosting a Children's Day Program. They returned home around nine-thirty in the afternoon, alongside Lena Stillinger, aged 12, and her sister Ina Stillinger, aged 8, as Mary had gotten permission for them to visit that night for a sleepover. After the family was asleep, the killer stole the axe from the yard where the family would cut wood, snuck upstairs to the parents' bedroom, and killed Josiah and Sarah with the axe so viciously that Josiah face was unrecognizable. Investigators even found gouge marks in the ceiling from the backswing of the axe. The killer then crept into the rest of the upstairs rooms and killed the Moore children by hitting each of them in the head with the blunt end of the axe, before returning to the parents' bedroom and hitting them several more times, before going downstairs and killing Lena and Ina, once again with the blunt side of the axe. Everyone except Lena had been asleep and unaware when they were killed, but she was found with defensive wounds on her arm and was not tucked into bed like the rest of the victims, likely awoken by the sound of her sister being killed. Whilst there were several suspects, and some were even arrested, nobody was charged with the murders at 508 East 2nd St, and nobody is sure why it happened.
The Mystery: This is the only unsolved crime in the list, and whilst I do find unsolved murders troubling because we literally can't know the reason, most of the time I'm sure that whatever the truth is it will make sense. But this case is so different to me because what evidence there is seems to dismiss every possible motive. Police at the time suspected that it was a homeless man who killed the occupants to squat there or steal food, but nothing was stolen from the Moore house and no food was eaten, and whilst police targeted several homeless suspects, they found no evidence whatsoever. It seems like it could have been some form of targeted attack, especially considering how brutally Josiah and his wife were slaughtered, but Josiah just didn't have many rivals. His closest rival was Senator Frank Fernando Jones, who lost some business after Josiah Moore opened his own business, but there was no evidence leading to Jones; there was also a rumour that Josiah had slept with Jones' daughter-in-law, but this was just a rumour and when police investigated, they found it was nothing more than that. I also need to add, most of the children were asleep even after Josiah was killed first so if he or his wife were the intended targets the killer could have slipped out unseen after killing them, so why kill the children, if they weren't the targets? Lastly, there's the serial killer theory. Some people tie this murder into the Billy the Axeman serial killer, an unknown person that some claim is responsible for a series of axe murders around the Midwest. It's an interesting theory, and it explains the motive, as for serial killers, the motive is more about themselves than the victim, but as neat as this seems, homes not being far from the train station, and killers using the blade and blunt side of an axe, I fear it's not that unique. In a small town, every house "isn't far from" a train station, and the Villesca house was almost a kilometre away from the nearest station, much further than every other house the killer would have to pass on the way. And if you've ever used an axe, you'd know that a blade can get stuck, especially in a wet, fibrous target, so flipping an axe over to kill with isn't so odd a practice that only one killer would think of it. So, not only will we never know who killed this family, it seems impossible to determine why it happened.
1. The Murder of James Bulger
The Crime: On the 12th of February, James Patrick Bulger, a two-year-old boy, was at the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, a town in the borough of Merseyside, in Liverpool, England. His mother was shopping with him at the butcher shop, and had let go of his hand just to pay for her shopping, but when she turned around, her son was missing. He'd been taken by two people - later identified as Robert Thompson, and John Venables - who lured him out of the shopping centre. Together the boy and his two attackers went to the nearby canal, where he was dropped on his head, pushed and shoved. They travelled further down the road where they were seen by several passersby, some who said the boy was crying his eyes out, but when anyone approached the attackers, they simply claimed that Bulger was a relative or that he was a lost boy that they were escorting to the police station. Thompson and Venables then took him to the railroad tracks where they threw paint in his face, kicked him, stomped on him, threw bricks at him and dropped an iron bar they found near the tracks onto the boy's head, fracturing his skull. The two caused so many injuries that the coroner couldn't identify which was the fatal blow, especially as they left him on the tracks where his body was hit by a train and cut in two. At some point they also stripped him from the waist down, removing his trousers, socks and underpants. Some police who investigated believed that the boy was sexually abused, but both Thompson and Venables denied this. The two had hoped the death would be ruled accidental, but the forensic pathologist found that he was dead before the impact, and they knew it was a murder.
The Mystery: If you've never heard of this case, which is unusual as this is a world-famous case, I've deliberately tried to keep the most shocking part a secret. Because, to me, what is so deeply disturbing about this case is exactly who Robert Thompson and John Venables were. For you see, these two killers were primary school students, each ten years old, who were skipping school that day as they often did. They were caught less than a week after committing the murder, because they were children, they were captured on CCTV camera; there was blood on their shoes; the bruises on the body matched the pattern on one boy's shoes; they were identified by a mother who stopped them trying to lure her son away; & they both still had the same blue paint on their clothes which they had thrown into the boy's eyes. So, not only were the police quick to hunt them down, but they were just as shocked with the overwhelming evidence that this disgusting act was committed by two primary school children. How? I don't understand how this could possibly make sense. For me, this is the least explicable because, them being children, means that I just can't explain it. Especially because this was also pre-meditated. As I said, the two tried and failed to abduct another child, but their mother saw and stopped them. According to one of these boys, before going to the shopping centre the two had planned to steal a young boy and push him into oncoming traffic. And this whole time, I just want to know why? Why would they want to do this? Did they think it would be fun? They were kid's, for fuck's sake, how would this even occur to them as a thing that could be done, let alone something they wanted to be doing? A lot of people believe that Bulger was molested and that the motive was sexual, but there was no evidence of that. The most disturbing part, to me, is that during their trial and after the fact both boys were diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for taking part in a murder. So, why would they do this in the first place? Why would they want to? What can make any child, let alone two children, want to kill another person and choose to prey upon a child much smaller than them to torture and murder... I've tried to be as logical as I can be, but I just don't understand it at all. How can anyone make sense of such a horrific act by two people usually referred to as "innocent children"? I don't know. Fuck... I just don't know.
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That's my list. As I said, these are cases I don't understand. But, keep in mind that I am not a researcher or a scholar, I only have Google, news articles on websites, YouTube clips and the odd podcast; also, I'm not a criminologist, forensics expert, psychiatrist, lawyer or even an experienced true crime commentator. So, just because I don't understand something that doesn't mean it's inexplicable. You may well see these cases and, horrifying though they be, see them as easily explained by the facts at hand as I do so many of the others that aren't on this list. The answers to these mysteries are likely to be one of the answers that I've dismissed or something I lack the expertise to even consider in the first place. But, I share them to show that, to me, Knowledge is Power, and understanding brings me comfort. But that means, consequently, that ignorance (far from bliss) is impotence. And when facing something as disturbing as these crimes, being powerless to understand them makes me feel not just discomfort, but unsafe.
I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and I'm very understanding of crime and criminals, and I think we too often demonize them, rather than try to rehabilitate. But these few cases, well, they're the closest I ever come to empathizing with the cruel majority who want to lock up these evils up and throw away the key, or in some cases even exact revenge by killing them.
Thankfully, I'm still not close enough to empathize with that...
But for me? That's still too close for comfort.
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