2020 Halloween Murder Special (Sorry, Not Sorry)

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Season 4

Episode 17

Halloween murders

 

Halloween Special

Our nephews

Beatrice, Lucille and Gertrude

 

When black cats prowl and pumpkins gleam, may luck be yours on Halloween.”

 

— Unknown

 

      Tonight's episode doesn't deal in Halloween luck. Unfortunately it is the exact opposite. We've dealt with murders and murderers in the past. We've brought you the history of Halloween in the past. Who knows what we'll bring you in the future. As for the present, for our Halloween treat to you, we bring you Halloween murders. Some crazy, some sad, some creepy, all on Halloween. Jeff will be happy to know there is no nerdy stuff to start this episode so we're just gonna jump right the fuck into it! Sit back and enjoy these murderous Halloween tales! 

 

       We're gonna jump right into the fray here with a pretty brutal story. 

 

   Amarillo Texas, October 31 1981: 

John Frank Garret was a mentally impaired man from Texas. This kid had a super fucked up childhood. He was raped by his stepfather and at one point hired out to another man for sex. At the age of ten… Ten… He was introduced to alcohol and other drugs. This would lead him into serious drug abuse at such a young age which involved amphetamines and paint thinner among other brain damaging drugs. At 14 he was forced to perform degrading sex acts and perform in homosexual porn films. He was regularly beaten and at one time was set on a burner of a stove resulting in terrible scarring. Did we mention that this was all before the age of 17? One of the experts described Garrett's case as "one of the most virulent histories of abuse and neglect I have encountered in over 28 years of practice." On the other side of this  story you have the exact opposite type of person, a nun. 76 year old Sister Tadea Benz lived at the convent right across the street from Garret. On Halloween night she was brutally raped and strangled. Garrett was accused and arrested for the horrific murder. He vehemently denied the accusations set on him. Information on Johnny Frank Garrett's abusive upbringing and mental health problems were not made available to the jury. According to three mental health experts who examined him between 1986 and 1982, Garrett was extremely mentally impaired, chronically psychotic and brain-damaged as the result of several severe head injuries he sustained as a child. He suffered from paranoid delusions, including a belief that the lethal injection would not kill him. Garrett was found guilty and sentenced to death. So, as only Texas would do, A 17 year old mentally impaired boy was convicted and put to death. His defense was widely considered extremely incompetent. Following appeals for clemency from Pope John Paul and the nuns from the victim's convent, then-Governor Ann Richards granted Garrett a rare 30-day executive reprieve. However, after a grossly inadequate clemency hearing, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously not to recommend commutation of his death sentence and the execution of Johnny Frank Garrett was allowed to proceed. He was executed by lethal injection on February 11th 1992. His final meal was ice cream. An article from the New York Times the following day summed it up as this:

 

"A month after winning a reprieve from the Governor, a man who raped and killed a Roman Catholic nun when he was 17 years old was executed by lethal injection at the state prison here early today. The execution of the prisoner, Johnny Frank Garrett, 28 years old, came after the United States Supreme Court's rejection of two appeals on Monday night and a third about an hour before he was put to death.

 

Mr. Garrett was convicted of killing Sister Tadea Benz, 76, at the St. Francis Convent in Amarillo in 1981. He came within an hour of execution on Jan. 6 when Gov. Ann W. Richards issued a month's reprieve at the urging of Pope John Paul II. Governor Richards's rare use of her authority to grant a reprieve prompted an equally unusual hearing last week by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to consider whether to recommend to the Governor that Mr. Garrett's sentence be commuted to life. But at the hearing, the board voted by 17 to 0, with one abstention, for the death sentence.

 

Mr. Garrett's case had become the focus of efforts by opponents of the death penalty. The Catholic Diocese of Amarillo, 16 Catholic bishops and the human rights group Amnesty International had opposed his execution. At issue was the contention of his lawyers that Mr. Garrett was insane and suffered from multiple personality syndrome as a result of physical and sexual abuse he had endured as a child. "I think he's simply too crazy to kill," one of those lawyers, Warren Clark, had said. The Supreme Court has ruled that a person who is insane and cannot comprehend an execution or the reasons behind it cannot be put to death. But prosecutors had insisted that while Mr. Garrett might not be normal, he was aware of his crime and understood the punishment.

 

  Mr. Garrett was the 44th killer put to death in Texas since the Supreme Court allowed the resumption of capital punishment in 1976. The total is the highest of any state." 

 

Garrett's last words before he died were as follows "I'd like to thank my family for loving me and taking care of me. And the rest of the world can kiss my ass." which is actually pretty awesome even though it didn't seem like his family loved him much.  But the story doesn't end here. A local lawyer, Jesse Quackenbusch, wasn't really convinced of the guilt of Garrett. Garrett maintained his innocence throughout his ordeal. Quackenbusch believed he had evidence to support that notion. Garrett was originally linked to the crime when his fingerprints were found in the nuns room. The police also claimed a steak knife found in Garrett's house was similar to a weapon found in the driveway of the convent. Hair and semen samples also were collected, but experts testified the samples could not be linked exclusively to Garrett. Quackenbusch also claims that the confession was written by police and not the words of Garrett who refused to sign the confession. Quackenbusch also said that Garrett claims the reason his fingerprints were there was that he was high on lsd one day and broke in and stole a stereo. Quackenbusch also brought up the similarities between the murder of Benz and another murder in the area 3 months prior to the nuns murder. Narnie Box Bryson was a 77 year old woman who was murdered in almost the exact same way as Benz. The similarities were so convincing, in fact, that the district attorney at the time and detectives were convinced the same person committed both murders. Furthermore detectives had concluded that a Hispanic man committed the murders, as well as 8 others in the area,  and black hairs were found at the scenes of both murders, while Garrett was white and had brown hair. Leoncio Perez Rueda was eventually convicted of the murder of Bryson after being linked by a DNA sample taken from semen found on Bryson during her autopsy. The kicker here is that Quackenbusch claimed in recent interviews at the time, Rueda claimed to have raped and killed a nun on Halloween in 1981. Quackenbusch continued his crusade by releasing the documentary "The Last Word" in which he outlines the case for the  innocence of Johnny Frank Garrett. How's that for an appetizer!

 

     October 31, 2010 Sandusky Ohio:

 

16 year old Devin Griffin came home after singing in a church service that morning. He came home and went up to his room to play video games. He was playing for a little while when he realized that the house was pretty quiet and began to wonder what was up. At around 1:30 in the afternoon he went to investigate and see where his parents were. He walked downstairs to his parents room and found his mom and stepfather in bed with the comforter pulled up over their heads. He started talking to his mother to try and wake her up and tapped her on her leg which was sticking out from the comforter. He got no response. He continued talking to her trying to wake her up and pulled the covers down slightly. As he did this is when he noticed his mother's pillow was soaked in blood. At first he thought this was just a Halloween prank, but slowly the realization set in, this was no prank, they were dead. Devin began to cry and ran from the house. He phoned his aunt in a Panic and she in turn phoned the police. What they would find when they arrived was horrific to say the least. 

 

   Investigators found Bill and Susan Liske shot to death in their bed. According to coroner records, Bill Liske was shot five times in the head and face, at a range of about one to two feet. He was lying in a natural sleeping position and had the covers pulled up over him. Susan was sprawled as if she might have been moved, investigators wrote. She was shot three times, again at what investigators suspect was close range. The bullets were small caliber, likely a .22. Upstairs, they found Derek Griffin's, Devon's 23 years old step brother, room locked. Police kicked the door in and found the young man curled up in bed facing the wall. According to the coroner's findings, he suffered blunt force trauma to the head and most likely died within a few minutes of the first blow.

 

Investigators searched and found a bloody claw hammer in the house, which coroners led to be consistent with Derek Griffin's wounds. The weapon and other evidence from around the home were sent to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation for forensic testing.

 

Devon Griffin told investigators the family owned lots of guns, many of which authorities seized for testing.

 

They found muddy footprints along a deck near the family's pond, suggesting the suspect may have disposed of the murder weapon in the pond.

 

Authorities drained the pond but found no gun. Weapons-sniffing dogs tracked much of the property and found nothing.

 

One person in the family was missing from all of the carnage, William Liske Jr., Also known as B.J. B.J.s trouble with the family began around 2002 when law enforcement was called to the Liske home because B.J. had threatened to harm himself. According to police records, B.J. Liske attacked the officers when they arrived and faced charges in juvenile court of assaulting a peace officer. Then, in October 2004, B.J. Liske got into a fight with his stepmother and struck her hard in the chest. Two months later police charged him with felonious assault and robbery for allegedly hitting Susan Liske with a coffee cup and stealing her car keys. He was found incompetent to stand trial on those charges, which were eventually dropped. After several more encounters with police B.J. was moved to a Sandusky group home for mental health patients. B.J. and his father got into a physical altercation after William Sr. Picked his son up from the group home. William Liske kicked his son out of the house after. Liske, then 18, attempted to attack Susan Liske as she showered. B.J. did not like his stepmother as she tried to put new rules in place when she married William to try to get the kids under control and bring order to the house as B.J. was acting out because of his parents divorce. Despite all of the issues and a diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, William Sr. sought to get guardianship of B.J. And to try and help his boy. William had taken vacation time and went hunting with B.J. just before the murders. He was with him less than 24 hours before the slaughter at the family's hunting cabin. Neighbors were worried about their safety with B.J. around, but William insisted the family was safe and that "B.J. wouldn't hurt us". The Saturday night before the murders, William and B.J. returned from their hunting trip and had some friends and neighbors over for dinner, beers and a good time. Everyone had fun and things seemed fine. The party broke up around midnight and everyone went to bed with B.J. taking a spot on the couch. According to a neighbor's wife, she thought she heard gunshots around 6:30 am. Devon spent the night at his father's and came home around 9:30 where he encountered B.J. in the home. B.J. asked what devon was up to and how long he'd be gone. He said he was heading to church and that B.J. seemed happy. After this interaction Devon left and B.J. took the family's truck and made his way back to the hunting cabin. He remained there until the police converged on the cabin and took him into custody. B.J. would eventually be convicted of the murders and sentenced to life in prison. In court he blamed his mental illness for the murders saying he doesn't really understand why he did what he did but he loved his father. 4 years later B.J. was found dead in his cell of a self inflicted wound. What a fucking story!

 

—-

 

As a child, What would you have done if someone stole your Halloween candy? What about as an adult? Would you yell? Steal it back? Well, I sure hope you wouldn’t do what this asshole did.

 

Ledell Peoples lost his shit on Halloween night 2011 in a domestic disturbance in Chicago’s South Side that turned pretty nasty. Not able to track down his bag of Hershey’s, Jolly Ranchers and Tootsie Rolls, he accused his partner, 49-year-old Maria Adams, of stealing them from him. As a way of responding to the accusation, she threw a plate at his head. Well, Peoples picked up a knife and repeatedly stabbed her. 

 

She died in hospital and he got 30 years. Over some fucking candy. Jackass.

 

The final victim of the toy box killers

 

Shirley Lynette Ledford was the fifth - and thankfully final - victim of LA serial killers Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris. The two men are one of the cruellest serial killing duos ever to disgrace the planet. Known as ‘The Tool Box Killers’ because of their vile and perverted penchant for tool-based torture, the sick pair would often tape-record their crimes. 

On Halloween night 1979, Bittaker and Norris snatched 16-year-old Shirley from a gas station, where she was hitchhiking home after a Halloween party. They beat her, raped her, tortured her externally and internally with pliers and eventually strangled her with a wire coat hanger. Finally, as a final insult, they dumped her lifeless body on a random front lawn.

Both men were caught a month after killing Shirley. They are still imprisoned in maximum security institutions to this day. Both remain unrepentant. 

 

The man who killed Halloween

 

Ever heard the old wives tale about checking your candy for poison or razor blades or small pieces of human remains? Ok, I made that last one up but we’ve all heard the stories. Luckily, it’s bullshit. well, for the most part. Except In Texas in 1974.

Ronald Clark O’Bryan laced five Pixy Stix with potassium cyanide, which closely resembles sugar and is highly poisonous, and planned on killing five local kids. Among them, his own son. Why the hell would anyone do this? Well, the plan was to blame the poisonings on a neighbour, see him imprisoned and O’Bryan could collect the insurance policy he’d taken out on his young son. Yeah. He’s a piece of shit.

11-year-old Timothy ate his cyanide-filled sour candy on his dad’s suggestion. It had enough poison in it to kill two people. Within an hour he was hospitalised and declared dead. Luckily for the other four children, the quick actions of local detectives figured out what had happened due to the smell on Timothy’s breath and confiscated the other Pixy Stix before they could be eaten.

On the 31st of March 1984, Ronald Clark O'Bryan - aka 'The Man Who Killed Halloween' - was rightfully put to death by the state in Huntsville, Texas. As the liquid chemicals entered his veins, a gathering of 300 people shouted ‘Trick or treat!' and threw hard candy at a small group of anti-death penalty protesters.

 

Peter Fabiano

 

It was late on Halloween night of 1957 in Los Angeles.  Beauty shop owner, Peter Fabiano and his wife, Betty were turning out all the lights in their home to go to bed for the night when their doorbell rang.  Mr. Fabiano went downstairs to answer the door, thinking it was a late trick-or-treater.  Mrs. Fabiano, still upstairs, heard her husband ask “Isn’t it late for this sort of thing?”  There was a muffled reply followed by a loud pop and then a thump.  As Betty ran downstairs she heard the squeal of tires on pavement as a vehicle sped off.  She found her husband sprawled on the floor, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the chest.  Mrs. Fabiano called for help, but unfortunately her husband died on the way to the hospital.

 

It took investigators nearly two weeks to identify a person of interest in the case.  The person they named was Joan Rabel, who at one time worked for Mr. Fabiano in his beauty shop.  Rabel had become good friends with Mrs. Fabiano and Betty even lived with Rabel for a short time during which she was having problems in her marriage.  Mr. Fabiano became jealous of the relationship between the two women.  He ultimately decided to work things out with Betty, but there were conditions that had to be agreed to.  Betty was not to ever see Rabel again and to not even say her name in Mr. Fabiano’s presence.

 

Rabel was arrested under the suspicion that she killed Mr. Fabiano because she wasn’t too keen on the demands he made that kept her from seeing Betty.  Rabel denied any involvement saying she was home the whole night and her car in her driveway was proof of that.  This was a partial truth.  In fact, her car was in her driveway the entire night, but after interviewing her acquaintances, detectives learned that she was most definitely not at home.  A friend of hers told investigators that she let Rabel borrow her car that night and that about 37 miles were put on it.

 

When caught in the lie, Rabel admitted that she did borrow the car to get groceries.  With no hard evidence to go on, the police had to let Rabel go.

 

About a month later an anonymous tip was called in about a lockbox in a department store that should be checked.  When officials followed up on the tip they found a .38 caliber gun, which ballistics later confirmed matched the weapon used to kill Mr. Fabiano.  Upon further investigation of sales records at local gun shops, they found that the gun belonged to Goldyne Pizer, a lab technician at an Los Angeles children’s hospital.

 

Pizer was a meek woman and almost immediately confessed to the shooting.  She insisted that it wasn’t her fault, however, and that someone had put her under a “spell”.  That person would turn out to be none other than Joan Rabel.

 

Rabel and Pizer had been good friends, possibly lovers for a few years.  Rabel would always tell Pizer what an awful person Peter Fabiano was.  It became an obsession and their favorite topic of conversation.  Though Pizer didn’t know Mr. Fabiano herself, she began to hate him.  Talk of murder began between the two women and Rabel gave Pizer money to buy a gun.

 

The night of the murder Pizer attempted to disguise herself, wearing a hat, gloves, mask and face paint with the gun hidden in a paper bag.  It was Halloween and wouldn’t look suspicious at all to anyone who may see her.

 

Rabel and Pizer arrived at the Fabiano house around 9 pm and sat outside waiting hours for the lights to be turned off inside the house to make their move.  Pizer went to the door while Rabel waited in the car.

 

After the deed was done, Pizer ran back to the car and when she got inside Rabel kissed her and said “Thank you.”  After dropping the car off Rabel told Pizer “Forget you ever knew me.”  The pair walked off in different directions.

 

Rabel pleaded not guilty.  Pizer claimed insanity.  In the end they each accepted a plea deal for second-degree murder and were sentenced to life in prison.

 

Lisa French

 

This is a rough one. 

 

Halloween night 1973, 9-year-old Lisa French wanted to wear a butterfly costume, but her mother convinced her to wear something a bit warmer for the Fond du lac, Wisconsin weather. Lisa ended up dressing like a hobo.

After eating dinner, she ran out of the door and started to trick-or-treat. She made plans to meet up with her friend and go to the Pumpkin Place, a safe area some of the parents had put together for the children. But her friend had gotten in trouble and wasn’t allowed to go. Lisa was left to go out alone.

She only made it to three houses that night. The first two, a teacher and a classmate home’s, gave her candy and sent her on her way. The third held more sinister motives.

Something was Wrong

Lisa was to be home by 7 pm, and when she didn’t return, her mother started to worry. By the time 10 pm arrived, the neighborhood had already begun searching for the little girl.

The neighborhood rallied together, posting signs in their windows, telling others that Lisa was missing. Police started a search party that lasted all night. The next day over 5,000 people joined in and widened the search area.

The national guard was called in, and private plane owners volunteered to search from the sky. All-terrain vehicles drove through the marshes, creeks, and fields. All the bodies of water around town had been dragged.

A local photoshop printed 6,000 copies of Lisa’s school photo that was passed around and posted throughout town. Gas stations were giving free gas to anyone using a vehicle to search for Lisa. Eventually, a farmer on his tractor found two garbage bags on his property. He stopped and inspected them, finding the body of Lisa French.

When the news circulated that Lisa had been found dead, the whole community seemed to mourn her loss. They all came out in support of her family for the funeral.

Myron Medin Jr spoke to the mourners who had gathered. “We are here . . . the entire city in spirit is here . . . to share your sorrow.”

Turner had been questioned starting the day after Lisa had been reported missing. By elimination, they could prove she had gone to two homes before coming to his, then no one else had seen her. At first, he denied any involvement. But finally, after nine months of being pulled in for questioning, he cracked and confessed. He would change his story during the trial, saying he only confessed to stop the police from harassing him, that he was completely innocent. The story that unfolded was as follows. Turner used to share a duplex with Lisa’s family, so she knew him quite well. When he lived next door, she was fond of talking with him. So nothing would have seemed strange for him to invite her inside that night.

After he had Lisa inside, he took her back to his bedroom, where he sexually assaulted her. He claimed that at some point, he realized she wasn’t breathing and tried to resuscitate her. But his girlfriend came home and interrupted him. So he put socks on his hands and moved Lisa’s body into the master bathroom to deal with later.

He went out wrapped in a bathrobe, telling his girlfriend he didn’t feel well. While she was there, he kept returning to the bedroom, was he revisiting Lisa’s body?

His girlfriend ended up leaving again to go to her mother’s. After she left is when Turner put Lisa’s body in a trash bag and her belongings in another. He took both bags a few miles out of town and dumped them in a field.During the trial, the medical examiner testified about the cause of death. Lisa French died from asphyxiation. But she wasn’t smothered or strangled. She had died due to shock while she was sexually assaulted.

The jury found Turner guilty of second-degree murder, enticing a child for immoral purposes and acts of sexual perversion.

Robert Owens, the chief psychologist at Taycheedah Correctional Institute, had met with Turner. “He has a cold disregard for people, mainly females. He does not have conscience control to inhibit his impulses for pleasure and to confront to society’s laws.”

During his sentencing, Circuit Court Judge Milton saw Turner for who he was. “He impressed me as showing no remorse . . . no feeling of repentance.”

It doesn't end there… This dude got released but once but twice. The first time, citizens in the area threatened a civil lawsuit against the state and parole board for allowing the release of a dangerous sex criminal. The authorities admitted their mistake and sent Turner back to prison. But a few years later he was released again for some ridiculous reason. He was fairly quiet for a couple years when a routine parole check uncovered graphic pornography on his computer which was a major cousin. He was then sent back to prison where he sits. He is eligible for parole as of 2018 but had been denied each year since. Here's to hoping this sick fuck never gets out!

 

ALL TRICK, NO TREAT

When 12-year-old trick or treater T.J. Darrisaw knocked on Quentin Patrick's door in the city of Sumter, South Carolina, on Halloween night in 2008 - he expected candy. What he got was 29 bullets through his front door from a fully automatic AK-47. 11 of which hit him, killing him instantly. The poor kid's dad and younger brother were also hit but pulled through and survived. It turns out that Quentin Patrick was a convicted drug dealer that had upset a rival gang of dealers and was fully expecting retribution. What he got was blood on his hands and 30 years inside.

 

This ones not about Halloween, the holiday but… well, you’ll get it.

 

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_2552173

 

YOSHIHIRO HATTORI

 

Yoshihiro Hattori was a Japanese exchange student living in Baton Rouge as part of the American Field Service program. On Halloween night 1992, Hattori and the young son of his host family went to a Halloween party for AFS students. Unfamiliar with the neighborhood where the party was, the boys rang the doorbell of the wrong house.

 

When they got no answer, they started walking back to their car. The owner of the home, Rodney Peairs, then opened the door armed with a .44 Magnum. Hattori turned around and said, "We're here for the party." Claiming he feared for his life and that the exchange student was "scary," Peairs shot Hattori, ending his life.

 

Only when both the governor of Louisiana and the Japanese consulate got involved was Peairs arrested, after which he was acquitted of manslaughter. Peairs used the old cake doctrine defense… We think he's just a fucking dick that for away with murder.

 

This last one opens an entirely different can of worms that we plan on discussing in a bonus episode. Chris Jenkins died on Halloween in 2002. He turned up four months later in the Mississippi River still wearing his Halloween costume. Authorities believe his death was an accident or suicide but many people believe he is connected to the Smiley face killer. We don't have the time to get into the Smiley Face Killer theory on this episode but it's pretty crazy and we'll dive into it as a bonus because it's very intriguing. That's the main reason this story made it into this episode… We like to set stuff up… You know foreshadowing and shit.