The Zodiac killer was active in Northern California for ten months in the late 1960s. He killed at least five people, and injured two. He committed the first two murders with a pistol, just inside the Benecia border. In his second shooting in Vallejo, he attempted to kill two people, but one survived despite gunshots to the head and neck. 40 minutes later the police received an anonymous phone call from a man claiming to be their killer and admitting to the murders of the previous two victims.
In March 1998, by which time he had already killed well over 200 people, a police investigation was begun—but quickly abandoned. It was not until Shipman decided to forge the will of one of his victims in June 1998 that a thorough investigation took place, leading to his arrest three months later. Since beginning to investigate Shipman in 2000, I have been trying to understand how it was that he could kill so many patients without detection. There were, of course, some system failures, but it has been impossible to avoid the question as to why the system weaknesses were tolerated to the extent that Shipman was able to murder not merely one or two patients, but over 200. The conclusion I have come to is that all doctors, and not general practitioners alone, share responsibility for creating the circumstances that enabled Shipman to be so successful a killer.
“THE ZODIAC KILLER” The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer's identity remains unknown. He named him self the “Zodiac”. He sent the police four difficult letters to read, these letters included four cryptograms. Of the four he sent, only one has been solved.
Activity 1 Derrick Bird committed Mass Murder through Cumbria on 2nd June 2010. From the evidence it seems as if the reason for this spree was money related, his father had recently deceased and he wanted everything in his will killing his brother and his lawyer. He was also going through a tax investigation at the time. His motive seems to be personal at first mixed with financial and then turns into a mental disturbance as he kills those at random. His first 3 victims experienced high levels of risk as he specifically targeted them and the rest were of low risk as they had not done wrong or even know Bird.
DeSalvo's confession remains the only evidence linking him to the case, and it contradicts the autopsy findings. All the women who were murdered by the Boston strangler, had also been sexually assaulted, most being strangled afterwards with a piece of their own clothing, usually with nylons. Even though nobody had ever officially been on trial as the Boston strangler, the public believed that Albert DeSalvo, who confessed in detail to each of the strangler murders, as well as others, was the murderer. However, at the time DeSalvo confessed, most people who knew him personally did not believe him capable of the vicious crimes and today there is a persuasive case to be made that DeSalvo wasn't the killer after all. The Boston Strangler operated in the Boston area during a two-year span in the early 1960s.
Included with each letter was one-third of a 408-symbol cryptogram which the killer claimed contained his identity. The killer demanded the newspapers print these on each paper’s front page or he would go around all weekend killing lone people in the night. The Chronicle published its third of the cryptogram which the killer claimed contained his identity and the threatened murders did not happen (AMC TV, 2010). On August 7, 1969, the San Francisco Examiner received another letter with the salutation “Dear Editor this is the Zodiac speaking”. This was the first time the killer had used this name for himself and it was in response to the Vallejo Police Chief’s request for more details to prove he killed Faraday, Jensen,
This book explores the views of eight different men who have well-educated yet differing opinions on the issue. In this book I am drawn to the experiences of Alex Kazinski, a federal judge for the court of appeals. He discusses the case of a young man named Thomas Baal who brutally stabbed a thirty-four year old woman for money in 1988 (2-4). Kazinski states, “Whatever qualms I had about the efficacy or the morality of the death penalty were drowned out by the pitiful cries of the victims screaming from between the lines of a dry legal prose” (Bedau and Cassell 3). He goes on to explain how Mr. Baal refuses his right to appeal and instead expresses his wish to be put to death (Bedau and Cassell
For twenty years, theses deaths and disappearances were attributed to the so-called “Green River Killer,” which was an unidentified serial murderer (The Seattle). Detectives and forensic scientists reviewed hundreds of items of physical evidence and interviewed thousands of witnesses but the case remained unsolved until 2001. In 2001, the King County Prosecuting Attorney charged Gary Leon Ridgway with four of these murders because of DNA evidence (The Seattle). In the following year, additional forensic evidence led to three more murder charges. The seven charges implicated Ridgway in only a fraction of the Green River homicides.
They were later convicted and sent to jail. Scenarios like this this happen all the time for example in 1988 two men named Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz were convicted of rape and first degree murder and later convicted. 11 years later they were found to be innocent but why were they convicted? B. Tie to the audience: According to the website researchnews.osu.edu/archive/ronhuff.htm it is estimated 10,000 people each year are falsely convicted of crimes.
Until recently, serial killers and mass murders have been categorized together. However, there is a clear line between the two.A mass murder is a one-time event that involves the killing of many people at one location. In a mass murder, the victims may be either randomly selected or targeted for a specific reason such as for revenge by the killer. On the other hand, a serial killer is a person who murders three or more people with the murders totaling more than a month's time and including a significant break or “cooling period” between each of them. In the United States, serial killers are most often white males (Vronsky, 8-37).