True Crime

[Guybrush]

Heyo!

I wouldn't consider myself a true crime buff, more like a picky nibbler, but some cases still fascinate me.

Is there anything in the world of crime that fascinates you?

Currently I'm fascinated (and appalled) by the Natalia Grace case. There's a documentary on HBO that we started on a little while ago. This is the case where a US couple with three kids decided to adopt a fourth child, a handicapped child with dwarfism from the Ukraine who was about 6 or 7 when they got her. Then decide they think she's actually an adult doing a scam, like in the horror movie The Orphan.

The documentary is very sensationalist and insinuate they might be right, but really.. looking at Natalia in videos and pictures and the way she acts, she's definitely just a kid... But they still get her "re-aged" to 22 and move her to an apartment. So she's like 9 years old and living on her own without being able to take care of herself 😱

No body count to this case, but it sure is nuts.

[Janszoon]

I'm not familiar with the Natalia Grace case, but I do watch, read, and listen to a lot of true crime stuff. I've been on a huge Dateline kick lately and the most recent episode I watched was about the murder of Joseph Morrissey back in 2010. The killer was a total psycho who tried to throw his own son under the bus for the crime.

[Guybrush]

Haven't heard of that one, but that's creepy. I guess you gotta screen your tenants.

A case I read about some years ago and couldn't quite forget was about the cannibal couple Dmitry and Natalie Baksheevy.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41396831

Dmitry had lost his unlocked phone and some construction workers found it and pictures of him sucking on a dead person's cut off hand or something.

They were found out and arrested for a murder on a woman who they seem to have killed an eaten parts of. A raid on their apartment found more human parts, some pickled or prepared as food.

Rumours circulated they may have been doing this for a long time. It seems partly substantiated by the existence of a photo from 1999 of a human head on a plate of oranges and there's a guy who believes he's a surviving victim as he was attacked by both of them in his home, but managed to fend them off due to his military training.

Natalia supposedly admitted to them having killed over 30 people, but they were only convicted of one. Dmitry quickly died in jail.

There are YouTube vids and discussions on Reddit, but I've been kinda waiting for more thorough reporting on this. No documentary has been made yet (afaik) so I'm guessing it's either too grisly, too impossible to figure out or the whole thing is mostly just rumours.

[Lisnaholic]

Good topic for a thread, Guybrush !!



Coincidentally, I used to walk past this house in south-west London on a regular basis, but only learned about a decade later that it was once a crime scene - that was when this book became the first true-crime book I ever read:-



It was, by today's standards, an un-dramatic case of poisoning, but it got me interested in the true crime genre, which I have been dipping into ever since. Here's a more up-to-date book I read set in the USA:-



... but if you want something really up there in terms of shock value, this famous case in Britain is unusually creepy:-

 

[Guybrush]

If I remember correctly, Myra Hindley and Rosemary West became friends and probably romantic partners in prison.

Talk about a creepy couple!

[Lisnaholic]

^ Yeah that sounds so weird, but apparently Myra Hindley had no lack of amorous partners during her years in jail, including a prison guard who was dismissed for conduct with MH that went well beyond her job description, knowodahmsayin?

[Janszoon]

Rumours circulated they may have been doing this for a long time. It seems partly substantiated by the existence of a photo from 1999 of a human head on a plate of oranges and there's a guy who believes he's a surviving victim as he was attacked by both of them in his home, but managed to fend them off due to his military training.

For a second I thought you were saying the head on the plate belonged to the guy who survived. lol

[Psy-Fi]

I recently watched a movie from 1948 that was based on a real-life criminal named Erwin Walker. I'd never heard of him but the movie made me curious, so I looked his name up online. Didn't see any book about him but the info I found would certainly make for a good true-crime biography.

Erwin Walker

Too crazy to die: The story of Erwin "Machine Gun' Walker

[FETCHER.]

There has been a huge case here recently with a woman called Lucy Letby, she was a nurse in a neonatal intensive care unit (I think).

I don't read about it for weeks then I go through periods where I can't stop reading about it. It's crazy and I go back and forth between her being guilty/innocent. It's disturbing and includes her murdering several really sick babies.

I think this article covers a little bit of it without going in to too much detail

[Guybrush]

Oh yes, I followed the Lucy Letby case a bit.. absolutely bizarre. The last time I checked in, the claim was she'd tried different ways of killing babies, but most or all of them horrible, so they thought she was a sadist getting enjoyment from their suffering.

The craziest thing I picked up on is her diary/writings in which she seems to be really conflicted/remorseful, but then she doesn't stop? I got the impression that murdering babies was like an unwanted addiction to her.

Just don't kill babies, Luce.

[FETCHER.]

Oh yes, I followed the Lucy Letby case a bit.. absolutely bizarre. The last time I checked in, the claim was she'd tried different ways of killing babies, but most or all of them horrible, so they thought she was a sadist getting enjoyment from their suffering.

The craziest thing I picked up on is her diary/writings in which she seems to be really conflicted/remorseful, but then she doesn't stop? I got the impression that murdering babies was like an unwanted addiction to her.

Just don't kill babies, Luce.

Yeah I done a deep dive on it recently because I found it so hard to believe that she had done it. The one bit of info I can remember that convinced me she was guilty was one her giving one of the babies insulin. The timeline on it was awful 😩. I can look in to all of it again and post here because it really is crazy.

I still haven't figured out if she wanted the babies to die or if she was wanting the doctors attention or if she was maki g them sick so she could look like a hero saving them.

At face value she looks and seems like a really unlucky innocent nurse standing trial but when you look in to the finer details it all makes sense. I couldn't believe for so long that she done it. I guess that's how she got away with it.

Yeah I remember the diary stuff, to begin with I thought the media portrayed it as scribblings of a mentally ill wrongly accused nurse but I definitely agree it was like some sort of outlet for her. The more I read in to it the more I thought she was guilty.