276 Fun Facts About True Crime

Which Truman Capote 'non-fiction novel' reconstructs the 1959 murders of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas?

In Cold Blood took Capote six years; his childhood friend Harper Lee went with him to Kansas and helped interview townspeople and investigators, filling thousands of pages of notes.

In police work, what is a 'cold case'?

An unsolved crime no longer under active investigation, usually a murder or other serious felony; the file stays open, so a new witness or fresh forensic testing can revive it years later.

Which Latin phrase do investigators use for a criminal's characteristic way of committing crimes?

Modus operandi, shortened to M.O., means 'mode of operating'; it covers how an offender commits a crime, avoids detection and gets away, so matching M.O.s can link separate crimes.

Which discipline uses insects to aid legal investigations, particularly in estimating time of death?

Forensic entomology reads insects as a clock: blowflies are among the first to reach a body, and the growth stage of their maggots shows roughly how long ago death occurred.

What is the post-death stiffening of muscles used to estimate time of death called?

Rigor mortis, Latin for 'stiffness of death', sets in a few hours after death and fades again within days as the muscles relax, which is why its progress helps date a death.

Which branch of psychology serves courts and the criminal justice system?

Forensic psychology applies psychological expertise to legal questions; its practitioners assess competency to stand trial and testify as expert witnesses in criminal and civil proceedings.

What writ forces a jailer to bring a prisoner before a judge and justify the detention?

Habeas corpus, Latin for roughly 'you shall have the body', does more than summon the prisoner: a judge who finds no lawful ground for the detention orders a release.

Which specialty examines firearms, ammunition, and the flight of projectiles to help solve crimes?

Forensic ballistics covers firearms, ammunition and projectile behaviour; examiners match the striations a barrel leaves on a bullet to a specific weapon, and the ATF's NIBIN database links cartridge cases across crimes.

Which discipline compares fingerprints, tyre tracks and toolmarks left at crime scenes?

Criminalistics can tie a track to a single vehicle because use gives every tyre its own pattern of wear, cuts and nicks, and its impression carries the same flaws.

Which method, devised by Vancouver detective Kim Rossmo, uses the sites of linked crimes to estimate where an offender lives?

Geographic profiling assumes offenders strike near home but not too near; the same maths has since been used to trace disease outbreaks and, in 2016, to test theories about Banksy's identity.

Which investigative specialty recovers evidence from seized computers, networks and phones?

Digital forensics began as a synonym for computer forensics; examiners copy a seized drive through a write blocker and work only on the duplicate, so the original evidence is never altered.

Jack the Ripper stalked which district of the East End in 1888?

Whitechapel was one of the East End's poorest, most overcrowded districts; the uproar over the failure to catch the killer turned on the home secretary and on police commissioner Charles Warren, who resigned that November.

The 1888 'Dear Boss' letter, which coined the name Jack the Ripper, is widely thought to be whose hoax?

A journalist: the leading theory is that the letter was faked to keep the Ripper story alive and newspapers selling, and a 2018 linguistic analysis pointed the same way.

How many Ripper victims make up the so-called 'canonical' group?

Five: senior detective Melville Macnaghten wrote in 1894 that the killer had 'five victims and five victims only', though the police file on the district's murders ran to eleven.

Lizzie Borden's father and stepmother were killed with a hatchet in 1892 at their home in which Massachusetts city?

Fall River: Andrew and Abby Borden were killed on 4 August 1892; Lizzie was tried in nearby New Bedford, acquitted in June 1893, and lived on in Fall River until her death in 1927.

Al Capone was finally sent to prison in 1931 for what crime?

Tax evasion got him eleven years; the Supreme Court had ruled in 1927 that even illegal income was taxable, so prosecutors went after his unpaid taxes rather than his rackets.

Which 1929 Chicago gang killing of seven men earned Al Capone the label 'Public Enemy No. 1'?

The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre saw seven men lined up against a garage wall on Clark Street and shot; Bugs Moran, the gang leader thought to be the real target, missed it by minutes.

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were ambushed and killed in 1934 in which state?

They died in Louisiana on 23 May 1934, ambushed by a posse led by former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer on a road near Gibsland in Bienville Parish.

Though famed as bank robbers, Bonnie and Clyde more often held up what?

Corner stores and gas stations were their usual targets, with only the odd small-town bank; undeveloped film left at their Joplin hideout in 1933 gave newspapers the posed photographs that made them famous.

Who was executed in 1936 for the kidnapping and murder of aviator Charles Lindbergh's baby son?

Bruno Richard Hauptmann, a German-born carpenter, was electrocuted at Trenton State Prison on 3 April 1936 after ransom gold certificates were traced to him; he protested his innocence to the end.

How did the Lindbergh baby's kidnapper reach the second-floor nursery in 1932?

A homemade ladder, left behind in sections, became key evidence: wood expert Arthur Koehler matched one of its rails to the flooring in the suspect's attic.

In 1971 the hijacker known as D. B. Cooper parachuted from a Boeing 727 with how much ransom money?

Cooper collected $200,000 in $20 bills and four parachutes at Seattle; only $5,800 of the cash ever turned up, found on a Columbia River bank in 1980.

The 1971 hijacker called himself Dan Cooper, so why is he remembered as D. B. Cooper?

A reporter's error put 'D. B.' into the first news stories, by most accounts after police checked and cleared a Portland man of that name; the hijacker himself only ever said Dan Cooper.

Britain's 1963 Great Train Robbery targeted a Royal Mail train running from Glasgow to which city?

London-bound, the mail train was halted at Sears Crossing in Buckinghamshire by a rigged signal, its green lamp covered with a glove, then driven on to Bridego Bridge, where the gang unloaded about £2.6 million.

Which piece of evidence found at the Great Train Robbers' farmhouse hideout led to most of the arrests?

Fingerprints on a board game, a Monopoly set the gang reportedly played with stolen banknotes, and on a ketchup bottle let detectives match the robbers to their criminal records.

How did the thieves gain entry to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in March 1990?

Two men posing as police officers talked their way in after hours, tied up the two guards and left with 13 works, including Vermeer's The Concert; none had been recovered as of 2025.

Whose only known seascape, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, was stolen from the Gardner Museum?

Rembrandt painted The Storm on the Sea of Galilee in 1633; because the museum's layout is meant to stay fixed, it left the empty frames hanging as placeholders for the stolen works.

What job had Vincenzo Peruggia held at the Louvre before stealing the Mona Lisa in 1911?

Peruggia had worked at the Louvre as a glazier fitting protective glass over paintings; he kept the Mona Lisa for more than two years before trying to sell it in Florence in December 1913.

Which evidence left on a victim most strongly tied Ted Bundy to the 1978 Chi Omega sorority murders?

Bite marks on Lisa Levy's body were matched to Bundy's teeth by a forensic dentist at the 1979 trial and proved the most damning evidence; he was executed ten years later.

Which 1973 horror film gives its name to the Zodiac Killer's letter of January 1974?

The Exorcist: the so-called Exorcist letter reached the San Francisco Chronicle that January and closed with the taunt 'Me – 37, SFPD – 0', far more killings than police ever tied to him.

Who solved the Zodiac's first cipher in 1969?

A married couple, schoolteacher Donald Harden and his wife Bettye, cracked it within days though neither was a trained codebreaker; the killer's next cipher held out until amateurs solved it in 2020.

Which Beach Boy introduced Charles Manson to the Los Angeles music industry?

Dennis Wilson befriended Manson in 1968 and let the 'Family' live at his Sunset Boulevard home; the Beach Boys recorded Manson's 'Cease to Exist' as 'Never Learn Not to Love' without crediting him.

Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi argued that Manson used what Beatles term for the race war he hoped to spark?

'Helter Skelter', a 1968 Beatles song, was the name Manson gave the apocalyptic race war he predicted; Bugliosi's 1974 book on the case took it as its title.

What did the gang behind the 1950 Great Brink's Robbery wear to hide their faces?

Halloween masks, worn with pea coats and chauffeur's caps that mimicked Brink's uniforms, hid the robbers; the case broke only when a gang member talked, days before the statute of limitations ran out.

The elderly gang behind the 2015 Hatton Garden burglary breached the vault wall using what?

An industrial drill bored through the 50cm vault wall over the Easter weekend; when the first attempt stalled, the gang left to fetch more equipment and came back to finish the job.

Which Scotland Yard unit, nicknamed 'the Sweeney', led the 2015 Hatton Garden burglary investigation?

The Flying Squad, Scotland Yard's robbery specialists, led the hunt; its nickname comes from Cockney rhyming slang, 'Sweeney Todd' for 'Flying Squad'.

In the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, con man Frank Abagnale poses as a pilot for which airline?

Pan Am: the real Abagnale has a cameo as a French policeman arresting his screen self, though later research found much of his memoir exaggerated or invented.

Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, exposed in 2008, had faked client holdings worth roughly how much?

Client statements showed about $65 billion of fictitious holdings when Madoff confessed in December 2008; the one-time Nasdaq chairman was turned in by his own sons.

How did the FBI finally identify the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, in 1996?

His brother recognised his prose: David Kaczynski, urged on by his wife Linda Patrik, read the manifesto after The Washington Post printed it in 1995 and saw echoes of Ted's old letters.

The FBI case name UNABOM, source of the nickname Unabomber, pointed to Ted Kaczynski's early targets, universities and what?

Airlines: UNABOM stood for 'University and Airline Bombing', and one early device went off aboard an American Airlines flight in 1979.

What did the three men who escaped Alcatraz in June 1962 leave in their beds to fool the guards?

Papier-mâché heads with real hair from the prison barbershop lay on their pillows; Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers left on a raft made of raincoats, and in 1979 the FBI concluded they had probably drowned.

Scotland Yard is named for the street where which force's first headquarters had its public entrance?

The Metropolitan Police, founded in 1829, worked from 4 Whitehall Place with a public entrance on Great Scotland Yard; it moved to the Embankment in 1890 as 'New Scotland Yard'.

The Pinkerton detective agency became famous by claiming to have foiled an 1861 plot to assassinate whom?

Pinkerton claimed to have uncovered the 'Baltimore Plot' against president-elect Abraham Lincoln in February 1861 and smuggled him through the city by night; Allan Pinkerton then ran Union espionage during the Civil War.

Francisca Rojas, believed to be the first person convicted on fingerprint evidence, was from which country?

Argentina: Rojas blamed a neighbour for killing her two children in 1892 until a police investigator matched a bloody fingerprint on a door to her, and she confessed.

The 1966 Supreme Court case requiring police to warn suspects of their rights was brought against which state?

Miranda v. Arizona threw out Ernesto Miranda's confession to Phoenix police and gave suspects the 'Miranda warning'; retried in 1967 without the confession, he was convicted again.

Who turned a 1949 wire-service story about the FBI's 'toughest guys' into the Ten Most Wanted list?

J. Edgar Hoover's Bureau gave a wire-service newsman the names of the 'toughest guys' it wanted; the 1949 story drew so much publicity that the list became official on 14 March 1950.

Interpol, the international police organisation, is headquartered in which French city?

Lyon has housed Interpol since 1989; founded in Vienna in 1923, the body fell under Nazi control in 1938 and was revived in Paris after the war.

Which novelist and magistrate, author of Tom Jones, founded the Bow Street Runners in 1749?

Henry Fielding recruited the first handful of thief-takers at his Bow Street court in 1749; his blind half-brother John Fielding, also a magistrate, built them into a lasting force.

Who was Al Capone's mentor and predecessor as head of the Chicago bootlegging syndicate?

Johnny Torrio brought Capone from New York to Chicago to work for him; after North Side gunmen shot him outside his home in January 1925, he stepped down and handed Capone the business.

Which magazine, launched in 1924, is credited with starting the true crime magazine genre?

True Detective began as True Detective Mysteries, mixing fiction with real cases; publisher Bernarr Macfadden dropped the fiction once the factual stories proved more popular.

John Berendt's bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is set in which city of the American South?

Savannah: the book follows antiques dealer Jim Williams through four murder trials over the shooting of Danny Hansford, and its success drew hundreds of thousands of tourists to the city.

Who hosted the podcast that reinvestigated the Adnan Syed case in 2014?

Sarah Koenig, a This American Life producer, hosted Serial; with producer Julie Snyder she spent twelve weekly episodes asking whether the evidence that convicted Syed held up.

The first season of the 2014 hit podcast Serial investigated the killing of which high-school student?

Hae Min Lee, 18, a senior at Woodlawn High School, vanished on 13 January 1999; Serial spent its season asking whether the evidence that convicted her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed was sufficient.

Season 2 of the podcast Serial focused on which US Army sergeant held by the Taliban?

Bowe Bergdahl walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009, was held by the Taliban for nearly five years and was freed in a swap for five Guantánamo detainees, then court-martialled for desertion.

Which honour did Serial receive in April 2015 for its long-form storytelling?

A Peabody went to Serial in April 2015, with the judges praising its 'innovations of form' and its 'compelling, drilling account of how guilt, truth, and reality are decided'.

Making a Murderer's Steven Avery comes from which Wisconsin county?

Manitowoc County convicted Avery of a 1985 assault he did not commit; exonerated after 18 years, he was suing the county when he was charged with murdering Teresa Halbach.

Photographer Teresa Halbach was last seen in 2005 at which kind of business run by Steven Avery's family?

A salvage yard: Halbach drove out on 31 October 2005 to photograph a van for Auto Trader magazine and was never seen again; days later her own vehicle was found on the yard.

Which nephew of Steven Avery was convicted of taking part in the murder of Teresa Halbach?

Brendan Dassey, then 16 and described in court filings as having significant intellectual limitations, gave a videotaped confession he later recanted; it was central to his 2007 conviction.

The Jinx's 2015 finale caught Robert Durst muttering to himself on a live microphone in which kind of room?

A bathroom: still wearing his microphone after the last interview, Durst was recorded muttering 'There it is. You're caught', words prosecutors called a confession at his 2021 murder trial.

Which writer's killing in 2000 led to Robert Durst's arrest the day before The Jinx finale aired?

Susan Berman, a mobster's daughter and Durst's friend since their UCLA days, was found shot in her Los Angeles home in December 2000, weeks after news broke that the inquiry into his missing wife had reopened.

Which director made The Jinx and the earlier Durst-inspired film All Good Things?

Andrew Jarecki directed All Good Things (2010), with Ryan Gosling as a thinly fictionalised Durst; Durst then agreed to the hours of interviews that became The Jinx.

Hiding from investigators in Galveston, Robert Durst disguised himself as what?

A mute woman was his cover in cheap Galveston lodgings; he later dismembered fellow tenant Morris Black, yet a jury that heard his self-defence claim acquitted him of murder in 2003.

Tiger King's Joe Exotic ran his roadside big-cat zoo in which state?

Oklahoma: he opened the park in the small town of Wynnewood in 1999 and named it for his late brother Garold Wayne, who had died in a car crash two years earlier.

Joe Exotic was convicted in 2019 of hiring a hitman to kill which rival big-cat keeper?

Carole Baskin, founder of Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, had long criticised how his park treated its animals; he was sentenced to 22 years in January 2020, cut to 21 on resentencing in 2022.

Tiger King's Joe Exotic ran in 2018 for which state office?

Governor: he came last of three in the Libertarian primary with 664 votes, and by that September he faced federal charges over a murder-for-hire plot.

Joseph DeAngelo, arrested in 2018 for the Golden State Killer crimes of 1974 to 1986, had earlier worked as what?

A police officer in Exeter and Auburn, California, DeAngelo was fired in 1979 for shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent.

Which technique finally unmasked the Golden State Killer as Joseph DeAngelo in 2018?

Forensic genetic genealogy: investigators uploaded crime-scene DNA to the GEDmatch site, built a family tree from distant relatives' matches and narrowed it to DeAngelo, arrested at 72 on 24 April 2018.

DNA testing in 2001 showed the East Area Rapist and which other offender were the same person?

The Original Night Stalker's Southern California murders were tied by DNA in 2001 to the Sacramento-area rapes; 'Original' had been added once Richard Ramirez took the Night Stalker name.

What does the BTK in Kansas serial killer Dennis Rader's self-chosen nickname stand for?

Bind, torture, kill was Rader's own description of his method in letters to police and the press; he killed at least ten people in Wichita and Park City between 1974 and 1991.

BTK killer Dennis Rader was caught in 2005 after mailing what to a Wichita TV station?

Floppy disk: Rader had asked police whether one could be traced, and they assured him by newspaper ad that it could not; the disk led straight to a computer at his church.

BTK killer Dennis Rader graduated from Wichita State University in 1979 with a degree in what?

Administration of justice was his major; he took the degree while working for the ADT home-security company, which he had joined in 1974, the year of his first murders.

Jeffrey Dahmer was killed in 1994 by which fellow inmate?

Christopher Scarver, serving life for murder, beat Dahmer and inmate Jesse Anderson to death on 28 November 1994 at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin.

Jeffrey Dahmer's first murder, in 1978, took place in which state, where he had grown up?

Ohio: three weeks after leaving high school, Dahmer killed hitchhiker Steven Hicks at his parents' home in Bath Township; he did not kill again until 1987, by then living in Wisconsin.

Which two clown characters did the 'Killer Clown' John Gacy create to perform at charity events?

Pogo and Patches were born after Gacy joined a 'Jolly Joker' clown club in 1975; he performed at fundraisers, parades and children's parties, calling Pogo the happy one and Patches the serious one.

Where did John Gacy bury most of his victims?

His home's crawl space held 26 of the 33 bodies; an officer inside the house had noticed the stench but at first took it for a broken sewage pipe.

Robert Piest vanished in 1978 after going to see John Gacy about a job in which trade?

Construction: Gacy ran a contracting firm and often lured victims with offers of work; a pharmacy photo receipt found in his rubbish showed the 15-year-old had been in the house.

What was H. H. Holmes's real name?

Herman Webster Mudgett took the name Henry Howard Holmes on moving to Chicago in the mid-1880s; as a Michigan medical student he had already used cadavers to cheat life insurers.

H. H. Holmes was convicted and executed for murdering which accomplice?

Benjamin Pitezel was meant to fake his death so the pair could split a $10,000 insurance payout; Holmes killed him for real, then took charge of three of the Pitezel children, who also died.

H. H. Holmes's most notorious crimes coincided with which Chicago event of 1893?

The World's Columbian Exposition drew millions of visitors to Chicago; Holmes left the city after it closed and was arrested in November 1894.

Gary Ridgway, caught by DNA in 2001, is better known as which Washington-state killer?

The Green River Killer was named for the river where his first victims were found in 1982; police had held hair and saliva samples from Ridgway for years before DNA testing finally matched them.

What clue proved vital in catching 'Son of Sam' killer David Berkowitz in 1977?

A parking ticket written near the last shooting put Berkowitz's car at the scene; a search of that night's tickets led detectives to his Yonkers home, where he was arrested on 10 August 1977.

David Berkowitz, the 'Son of Sam', first claimed he took orders from a demon in the form of what?

A neighbour's black dog: Berkowitz said Sam Carr's Labrador passed on a demon's orders to kill, then admitted in 1979 that he had made the story up.

'Son of Sam laws' were designed to prevent criminals from doing what?

Profiting from their crimes' publicity, for example by selling the story, is what Son of Sam laws forbid; New York passed the first in 1977 amid speculation that Berkowitz would sell his.

Aileen Wuornos killed seven male clients along the highways of which state?

Florida executed Wuornos by lethal injection in 2002; she had said the men tried to rape her and that she shot in self-defence, a claim she later dropped. Charlize Theron won an Oscar playing her.

Ed Gein's crimes came to light in 1957 in which Wisconsin town?

Plainfield, in Waushara County, where Gein's farmhouse of body parts and skin masks was searched in November 1957 after Bernice Worden vanished; he confessed to killing her and Mary Hogan.

What was the occupation of Bernice Worden, whose 1957 disappearance led to Ed Gein's arrest?

Hardware store owner Bernice Worden's last sales slip was for antifreeze, which Gein had said he would come back to buy; her son, a deputy sheriff, pointed investigators to him that evening.

Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, was found dead in 1947 in which Los Angeles neighbourhood?

Leimert Park: her body lay in a vacant lot, cut in two at the waist and drained of blood, so pale that the woman who found it while out walking with her child first took it for a mannequin.

Which director's 2006 film adapted James Ellroy's Black Dahlia novel?

Brian De Palma took over The Black Dahlia after David Fincher, who had pictured Ellroy's novel as a five-hour miniseries, moved on to make Zodiac instead.

Former LAPD detective Steve Hodel accused which relative of being the Black Dahlia killer?

His father, Dr George Hodel, a Los Angeles physician, had been a suspect in the 1947 murder but was never charged; Steve Hodel made the accusation only after the old man died in 1999.

JonBenét Ramsey was killed in 1996 in her family home in which Colorado city?

Boulder: the six-year-old was found dead in the basement of the family's home on 26 December 1996; a Boulder grand jury voted in 1999 to indict her parents, but the district attorney refused to prosecute.

Police initially believed the ransom note in the JonBenét case was written by whom?

Patsy, her mother, could not be ruled out by handwriting examiners as the note's author, and police suspected a staged scene; in 2008 the district attorney told the family that DNA evidence had cleared them.

Who was the judge at O. J. Simpson's eight-month criminal trial in 1995?

Lance Ito ruled that a live television camera could cover his courtroom, so the eight-month trial played out daily on national TV; the jury then needed only a few hours to acquit.

Who initially led O. J. Simpson's 'Dream Team' before Johnnie Cochran took over?

Robert Shapiro built the 'Dream Team' but ceded the lead to Johnnie Cochran, and after the acquittal he accused Cochran of playing the race card 'from the bottom of the deck'.

Who drove the white Ford Bronco in the televised low-speed chase with O. J. Simpson?

Al Cowlings, Simpson's lifelong friend and former teammate, was driving his own white Bronco, not Simpson's; police later found cash, a passport, a loaded gun and a false beard inside.

Amanda Knox was tried for the 2007 murder of her roommate in which Italian city?

Perugia, where Knox was an exchange student; Meredith Kercher was killed in their shared flat in November 2007, and the country's highest court definitively acquitted Knox in March 2015.

Seattle-raised Amanda Knox attended which university before her exchange year abroad?

University of Washington: after her release in 2011, Knox flew home to Seattle, went back to her studies there and finished her degree.

Leopold and Loeb kidnapped and killed which 14-year-old in Chicago in 1924?

Bobby Franks, 14, a distant cousin of Loeb, was lured into a rented car on 21 May 1924 and killed; the pair hoped to prove their intellect with a 'perfect crime'.

Which famous lawyer defended Leopold and Loeb?

Clarence Darrow had the pair plead guilty so that a judge, not a jury, would decide the sentence; his closing plea against the death penalty won Leopold and Loeb life plus 99 years instead of hanging.

What did police find near the victim's body that helped crack the Leopold and Loeb case?

A pair of eyeglasses dropped near the culvert had an unusual hinge sold to only three Chicago customers, one of them Nathan Leopold.

Sacco and Vanzetti, executed in Massachusetts in 1927, were immigrant followers of which political movement?

Anarchism: the pair were believed to be followers of Luigi Galleani, who preached revolutionary violence, and they were arrested about three weeks after a paymaster and his guard were shot dead in Braintree in 1920.

Which governor proclaimed in 1977 that Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried?

Michael Dukakis declared 23 August 1977, the fiftieth anniversary of the executions, a memorial day for the two men; his proclamation said no stigma should attach to their names but stopped short of a pardon.

The 1978 Lufthansa heist at JFK Airport is a key plot point of which mob film?

Goodfellas shows the aftermath too: the real mastermind is alleged to have had many of his own crew killed rather than share the $5.875 million, and only inside man Louis Werner was ever convicted.

The reputed mastermind of the Lufthansa heist, James Burke, was an associate of which crime family?

Jimmy 'the Gent' Burke was an associate of the Lucchese family under capo Paul Vario, since a non-Italian could never be a made man; never charged over the heist, he died in prison in 1996.

The 2003 'heist of the century' took over $100 million in diamonds and gold from a vault in which Belgian city?

Antwerp, hub of the world's diamond trade: Leonardo Notarbartolo rented an office in the Diamond Center to study its vault, and was caught after rubbish dumped by a motorway held a half-eaten sandwich.

Where did the Antwerp gang allegedly hide a device recording the vault's combination?

By Notarbartolo's account a pinhole camera above the vault door filmed the combination being dialled and sent the footage to a recorder hidden in a fire extinguisher nearby.

Instead of the cash they expected, what did the 1983 Brink's-Mat robbers find at Heathrow?

Three tonnes of gold bullion sat outside the vault, awaiting shipment to Hong Kong; much of it was later melted down with copper coins to disguise its origin and recast for sale.

Which union boss vanished from a restaurant car park near Detroit in 1975, presumed murdered by the Mafia?

Jimmy Hoffa went to the Machus Red Fox to meet two Mafia figures, phoned his wife to complain that he had been stood up, and was never seen again; he was declared legally dead in 1982.

Pablo Escobar was shot dead in 1993 while fleeing across the rooftops of which Colombian city?

Medellín: the Search Bloc traced a phone call Escobar made to his family and shot him as he tried to escape over the roof on 2 December 1993, the day after his 44th birthday.

What was the name of the self-built prison where Escobar was housed after surrendering in 1991?

La Catedral, built to Escobar's specifications on a hillside above Envigado, held him from June 1991 until he walked out in July 1992; the no-extradition deal was struck with President César Gaviria.

Escobar's estate, Hacienda Nápoles, has since been transformed into what?

A theme park with a safari zoo and water park now fills Hacienda Nápoles, near Puerto Triunfo; the hippos Escobar imported thrived there, multiplied, and some escaped into the nearby Magdalena River.

How did El Chapo escape a Mexican maximum-security prison in 2015?

Through a tunnel into his cell, dug by associates and nearly a mile long; he was recaptured after a shoot-out in January 2016.

In which US prison was El Chapo incarcerated after his 2019 conviction?

ADX Florence, Colorado, the 'Alcatraz of the Rockies', had never had an escape when he arrived in 2019, which made it the obvious home for a man who had twice broken out of Mexican prisons.

Whitey Bulger was captured in 2011 in which California city?

Santa Monica: after sixteen years on the run Bulger was arrested at the apartment block where he had been living with Catherine Greig, and a federal jury convicted him in 2013 of taking part in eleven murders.

Johnny Depp played Winter Hill Gang boss Whitey Bulger in which 2015 film?

Black Mass follows FBI agent John Connolly, who grew up in the same housing project as Bulger, as he shields his informant for years; the real Connolly ended up in prison.

How did Whitey Bulger die in 2018, hours after reaching a new prison?

Beaten by inmates at USP Hazelton in West Virginia: Bulger, 89, was found the morning after he arrived, and three prisoners, one a Mafia hitman, were charged in 2022.

Which Gambino underboss turned government witness and helped convict John Gotti in 1992?

Sammy Gravano, 'the Bull', agreed to testify in 1991 after hearing FBI tapes of Gotti running him down; he had admitted to 19 murders himself, yet served only about five years.

Whose December 1985 murder did John Gotti orchestrate to take over the Gambino family?

Paul Castellano was shot outside Sparks Steak House in Manhattan on 16 December 1985; he had banned drug dealing on pain of death, and Gotti, whose crew faced heroin charges, struck before the boss could act.

Lucky Luciano is credited with establishing which Mafia governing body in 1931?

The Commission, set up in 1931 after the Castellammarese War, gave the bosses of the main families a board to settle disputes, replacing the 'boss of bosses' title Luciano abolished.

Lucky Luciano's sentence was commuted in 1946 on condition that he be deported to which country?

Italy: the commutation came from Governor Thomas Dewey, the very prosecutor who had convicted Luciano in 1936, as a reward for his reported wartime help to naval intelligence; he sailed in February 1946.

Ned Kelly's homemade armour was fashioned from what?

Plough mouldboards were beaten into armour that turned police bullets at Glenrowan in June 1880, but it left Kelly's legs unprotected, and shots to them finally brought him down.

Where was Ned Kelly hanged in November 1880?

Ned Kelly was hanged at Melbourne Gaol on 11 November 1880, aged 25, despite mass protests and petitions for a reprieve; Redmond Barry, the judge who sentenced him, had earlier jailed his mother.

The Moors murderers buried victims on which upland near Manchester?

Saddleworth Moor: two graves were found there in 1965, and Pauline Reade's only in 1987, after one of the killers confessed and was taken back to the moor to help police search.

Which woman was Ian Brady's partner in the Moors murders of the 1960s?

Myra Hindley admitted that the children would never have got into the car without her; the pair were caught in 1965 when her brother-in-law saw the last killing and went to the police.

The Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, was arrested in 1981 in Sheffield for what?

Driving with false number plates got Sutcliffe arrested with a sex worker in his car; the next day a sergeant went back to the spot and found the hammer and knife he had hidden there.

Peter Sutcliffe was moved from prison to which secure hospital in 1984 after a schizophrenia diagnosis?

Broadmoor held Sutcliffe for 32 years, until it was ruled in 2016 that he was fit to go back to prison; he was sent to Frankland jail in County Durham and died in 2020.

Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, claimed God's voice first spoke to him while he worked as what?

Gravedigger: Sutcliffe said the voices first came to him in Bingley cemetery, where he dug graves in the 1960s; the jury rejected his plea of diminished responsibility and convicted him of murder.

Fred and Rose West's home at 25 Cromwell Street became known by what nickname?

House of Horrors was the press name for the house where nine bodies were found; it was demolished in 1996 and the rubble crushed so that no one could carry off a souvenir.

Fred and Rose West buried victims at 25 Cromwell Street in which English city?

Gloucester: police dug up the garden in 1994 after the Wests' children spoke of a family threat that they would end up 'under the patio' like their missing sister Heather; Rose was convicted of ten murders.

About how many patients did the Shipman Inquiry estimate Harold Shipman killed?

About 250 is the inquiry's estimate, with more than 200 deaths positively identified; most were elderly women given lethal doses of diamorphine by the GP, who then signed their death certificates himself.

Harold Shipman's downfall began when a victim's daughter questioned a forged what?

A will: the forged document left Shipman about £386,000 and cut out the family, so Kathleen Grundy's daughter, a solicitor, went to the police and the body was exhumed.

How did Harold Shipman die in Wakefield Prison in January 2004?

Hanging: he was found hanged in his cell the day before his 58th birthday, never having admitted his crimes; he had reportedly told a probation officer that suicide would secure his widow an NHS pension.

Dr Crippen was the first criminal captured with the aid of what technology?

Wireless telegraphy: Captain Kendall of the SS Montrose radioed his suspicions to Scotland Yard, and Inspector Dew crossed on a faster ship to arrest Crippen in Canada; he was hanged at Pentonville in November 1910.

Dr Crippen fled across the Atlantic in 1910 with his lover Ethel Le Neve disguised as what?

A boy: Le Neve sailed in boy's clothes at Crippen's side, but the ship's captain judged her manner and build to be 'undoubtedly a girl' and raised the alarm before they reached Canada.

Which nightclub hostess, hanged in 1955 for shooting her lover, was the last woman executed in the UK?

Ruth Ellis shot racing driver David Blakely outside a Hampstead pub on Easter Sunday; asked in court what she had intended, she said she meant to kill him, and the jury convicted her in under half an hour.

Andrei Chikatilo, the 'Butcher of Rostov', was executed in 1994 by what method?

Gunshot: Chikatilo was killed by a single shot to the head in 1994; years earlier another man, Aleksandr Kravchenko, had been wrongly convicted and executed for his first murder.

Andrei Chikatilo sat through his 1992 murder trial in Rostov held inside what?

An iron cage was built in a corner of the courtroom, less to hold Chikatilo than to keep him out of reach of his victims' enraged relatives.

Elizabeth Báthory, the 'Blood Countess', belonged to a noble house of which kingdom?

Hungary: the Báthorys were among the kingdom's most powerful houses, and her uncle Stephen was King of Poland; some historians suspect the murder charges were inflated to break the family's influence.

What happened to Countess Elizabeth Báthory after her arrest in 1610 on charges of killing servant girls?

Confined to her castle at Csejte, she died there in 1614, while servants named as her accomplices were tried and executed; the tale that she bathed in blood surfaced only a century later.

Belle Gunness lured most of her victims to her Indiana farm by placing what?

Matrimonial ads in newspapers drew suitors to La Porte with their savings; after her farmhouse burned in 1908, searchers dug up the remains of at least eleven people, and her own fate was never confirmed.

Belle Gunness, born Brynhild Størseth, emigrated to America in 1881 from which country?

Norway: born in Selbu, she joined her sister in Chicago; her first husband later died on the one day that two life-insurance policies on him overlapped.

Burke and Hare murdered 16 people in 1828 to sell the bodies to an anatomy lecturer in which city?

Edinburgh: Dr Robert Knox paid £7 to £10 a body for his dissection classes, and the scandal helped bring the Anatomy Act of 1832, which gave anatomists a legal supply of corpses.

How did William Hare escape prosecution for the Burke and Hare murders?

He turned king's evidence: Hare testified against Burke in return for immunity; Burke was hanged in January 1829 and then publicly dissected, the fate he had sold his victims into.

The Bling Ring burglars operated from which California community?

Calabasas, a wealthy suburb west of Los Angeles, was home base for the ring, who checked celebrity news to see when stars were away and found their houses on Google Maps, taking about $3 million in 2008–09.

Which celebrity's house did the Bling Ring break into several times?

Paris Hilton's home was burgled several times; the ring picked her first, reasoning that she was the kind to leave a door unlocked, and found a key under the mat. Sofia Coppola filmed the story in 2013.

Elizabeth Holmes founded which blood-testing company in 2003?

Theranos made Holmes the youngest self-made female billionaire in Forbes' 2015 reckoning; she was convicted of fraud in 2022.

Who was Elizabeth Holmes's company COO and secret romantic partner?

Sunny Balwani, nearly twenty years her senior, ran the company's operations and was her secret partner; the SEC said the pair raised more than $700 million from investors through fraud.

Anna Sorokin, alias Anna Delvey, conned New York society by posing as an heiress from which country?

Germany was where the Russian-born Sorokin had moved as a teenager, though she had no fortune there; convicted in 2019, she saw the $320,000 Netflix paid for her story go on restitution and legal fees.

Patty Hearst was kidnapped in 1974 by which group?

The Symbionese Liberation Army took the Berkeley art-history sophomore; two months later she was photographed holding a rifle in the Hibernia Bank robbery.

Which president commuted Patty Hearst's sentence?

Jimmy Carter commuted her seven-year sentence in February 1979 after 22 months served; Bill Clinton granted a full pardon in January 2001.

Which two attorneys founded the Innocence Project in 1992?

Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld founded the Innocence Project at Cardozo School of Law in 1992; both later handled DNA evidence on O. J. Simpson's defence team.

Which factor does the Innocence Project count as the leading contributor to convictions later overturned by DNA evidence?

Eyewitness misidentification figured in 69% of the 375 DNA exonerations the project counted through 2020; in about half of those cases the witness had picked the wrong person from a photo array.

Who confessed in 2002 to the 1989 attack on a jogger in Central Park?

Matias Reyes, a convicted rapist and murderer already serving life, confessed in 2002; DNA matched him and the Central Park Five's convictions were vacated in December 2002.

Which 2019 Netflix miniseries dramatised the wrongful convictions of the Central Park Five?

When They See Us, Ava DuVernay's four-part drama, follows the five teenagers from their 1989 arrests to exoneration in 2002; New York City later settled their lawsuit for $41 million.

The West Memphis Three were freed in 2011 after entering what kind of plea?

Alford pleas, technically guilty pleas, let the three maintain their innocence while conceding prosecutors had enough evidence to convict; they were sentenced to time served and freed on 19 August 2011.

Which of the West Memphis Three was sentenced to death?

Damien Echols was sentenced to death in 1994, while Baldwin and Misskelley received life; prosecutors claimed the 1993 killings of three boys in West Memphis were a Satanic ritual.

My Favorite Murder is hosted by Karen Kilgariff and which co-host?

Georgia Hardstark, a former Cooking Channel host, and comedian Karen Kilgariff launched My Favorite Murder in January 2016 and popularised the sign-off 'Stay sexy and don't get murdered'.

What is the name of the podcast network launched by the My Favorite Murder hosts in 2018?

Exactly Right launched in November 2018 with five shows; the hosts built it after their first network, Feral Audio, shut down following abuse claims against its founder.

Who were the original co-anchors of Dateline NBC when it debuted in 1992?

Jane Pauley and Stone Phillips fronted a rocky first year: a 1992 report staged a GM pickup's fiery crash with hidden incendiary devices, and NBC's on-air apology in 1993 cost its news president his job.

Who hosted Dateline's hidden-camera series To Catch a Predator?

Chris Hansen worked with the watchdog group Perverted-Justice, whose volunteers posed online as minors; men who came to the sting house met Hansen and his cameras, and police arrested them as they left.

Which actor hosted Unsolved Mysteries until 2002 after Raymond Burr and Karl Malden fronted its first specials?

Robert Stack hosted the last four of the seven pilot specials and then every weekly season until 2002; after his death in 2003, a 2008 revival simply repackaged his old episodes with a new presenter.

Which former Chicago detective turned actor hosted Unsolved Mysteries' 2008 revival?

Dennis Farina was still on the force when director Michael Mann hired him as a police consultant and then cast him in Thief (1981), the small part that started his second career.

Who hosted America's Most Wanted from its 1988 debut on Fox?

John Walsh, whose six-year-old son Adam was abducted and murdered in Florida in 1981, hosted from the 7 February 1988 debut and became a leading victims' rights advocate.

America's Most Wanted moved to which women-focused cable network after Fox cancelled it in 2011?

Lifetime began airing it on 2 December 2011 after Fox ended the weekly show's 23-year run; Fox had tried to cancel it once before, in 1996, but protests that included 37 governors brought it back.

What was Forensic Files originally called?

Medical Detectives was the title when it debuted on TLC in 1996; it became Forensic Files on moving to Court TV in 2000, yet kept the old name in some countries, where the same episodes air under it.

Who narrated the original run of Forensic Files?

Peter Thomas, a World War II veteran, narrated all 400 regular episodes from 1996 to 2011; he died in 2016, so the 2020 revival, Forensic Files II, turned to Bill Camp.

Don't F**k with Cats follows the online hunt for which Canadian killer?

Luka Magnotta, who had posted videos of killing kittens, murdered Chinese student Jun Lin in Montreal in May 2012 and was arrested in a Berlin internet café.

In Don't F**k with Cats, the amateur sleuths organise their hunt for a kitten killer on which platform?

Facebook hosted the group where Deanna Thompson, a Las Vegas casino data analyst, and John Green pooled clues from the videos, studying objects in the room to work out where they were filmed.

The Dirty John podcast was created by Wondery and which newspaper?

Los Angeles Times reporter Christopher Goffard wrote and hosted Dirty John, released in October 2017 alongside a six-part print series; it was later dramatised for television with Connie Britton and Eric Bana.

Ann Rule met Ted Bundy in 1971 while both volunteered where?

A suicide crisis hotline in Seattle sat them side by side in 1971, and they became close friends; years later Rule wrote The Stranger Beside Me about discovering who he was.

Ann Rule's Small Sacrifices is about which Oregon child murderer?

Diane Downs shot her three children on a rural Oregon road in 1983, killing one, and told police a stranger had tried to carjack them; Rule's book became a TV film starring Farrah Fawcett.

Michelle McNamara helped coin which criminal's moniker?

McNamara coined 'Golden State Killer' in a 2013 Los Angeles magazine article; her book I'll Be Gone in the Dark appeared posthumously in 2018, two months before DeAngelo's arrest.

Which comedian helped finish his wife Michelle McNamara's I'll Be Gone in the Dark?

Patton Oswalt took up the unfinished manuscript after her death in 2016; the book came out two months before police arrested the killer she had hunted.

Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City pairs killer H. H. Holmes with which architect?

Daniel Burnham had to deliver the vast 'White City' without his design partner John Root, who died in January 1891, early in the planning; Larson interweaves that race with Holmes's murders.

Which actor bought the screen rights to The Devil in the White City in 2010?

Leonardo DiCaprio bought the rights in 2010 planning a feature film; Martin Scorsese later came aboard, yet repeated attempts stalled, and Hulu dropped a planned series version in 2023.

Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song depicts the execution of whom by the state of Utah?

Gary Gilmore demanded that his death sentence be carried out and chose the firing squad; his last words in January 1977, 'Let's do it', later inspired Nike's 'Just Do It' slogan.

Which French forensic pioneer held that 'every contact leaves a trace'?

Edmond Locard talked the local police into giving him two attic rooms and two assistants in 1910, creating one of the first police crime laboratories; the exchange principle is named after him.

Alphonse Bertillon is credited with inventing what police staple?

Bertillon standardised the mug shot, pairing full-face and profile photographs, as part of the anthropometric identification system Paris police adopted in the 1880s.

Bertillon's flawed handwriting testimony helped wrongly convict whom?

Alfred Dreyfus: Bertillon's convoluted 'self-forgery' theory about the bordereau was presented at the 1894 court-martial and the 1899 Rennes retrial, and was later demolished by a panel of mathematicians including Henri Poincaré.

Alec Jeffreys invented DNA fingerprinting in 1984 while working where?

Jeffreys was a geneticist at the University of Leicester; his 'eureka moment' came while looking at an X-ray film of DNA fragments on 10 September 1984.

DNA profiling's first murder case cleared a 17-year-old suspect who had already done what?

Confessed to one of the murders: Richard Buckland admitted the 1986 killing under questioning, but Alec Jeffreys's test showed he was not the attacker; police then screened about 5,000 local men.

How did Colin Pitchfork try to evade the 1987 mass DNA screening?

A colleague gave blood in his name: workmate Ian Kelly posed as Pitchfork using a doctored passport, until talk of the swap in a pub reached the police.

Luminol reveals trace blood by reacting with which component of hemoglobin?

Iron in haemoglobin acts as the catalyst when luminol meets hydrogen peroxide, producing a brief blue glow that investigators photograph in a darkened room.

A polygraph charts breathing, pulse, blood pressure and which other bodily response?

Skin conductivity rises as stress makes the skin sweat; the first polygraph was built by a Berkeley policeman in 1921.

Which early lie-detection researcher is better remembered for creating Wonder Woman?

William Moulton Marston, who championed the systolic blood-pressure test for deception, created Wonder Woman in 1941; her Lasso of Truth forces captives to tell the truth.

AMBER Alerts are named after Amber Hagerman, a nine-year-old abducted in 1996 in which state?

Texas: Amber was taken while riding her bicycle in Arlington, and Dallas–Fort Worth broadcasters then teamed up with police on an alert system; AMBER also stands for America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response.

Crime Stoppers began in 1976 in which New Mexico city?

Albuquerque: Detective Greg MacAleese had a local TV station air a re-enactment of an unsolved gas-station murder in 1976, offering cash for anonymous tips.

The original 'body farm' was founded in 1981 where?

University of Tennessee anthropologist William Bass opened the outdoor research plot in Knoxville to study how bodies decompose; its nickname spread after Patricia Cornwell's novel The Body Farm drew on his work.

Frances Glessner Lee's dollhouse-scale crime scene dioramas are known as what?

The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death take their name from a police saying: 'convict the guilty, clear the innocent, and find the truth in a nutshell'; Lee built each scene at one inch to the foot.

Frances Glessner Lee, the 'mother of forensic science', held which US distinction?

First female police captain in the US: New Hampshire's State Police gave her the rank in 1943, after she had helped found and endow Harvard's Department of Legal Medicine.

Robert Ressler is often credited with coining which term?

'Serial killer' is usually attributed to Ressler in the 1970s, though the German Serienmörder had been used by Berlin detective Ernst Gennat in 1930.

An alternative theory in The Staircase case holds that Kathleen Peterson was attacked outside her home by what?

An owl: attorney Larry Pollard, a neighbour, argued that a barred owl struck Kathleen outside, and that she then fell on the stairs; her husband Michael, a novelist, was convicted of her murder in 2003.

Netflix's Mindhunter is based on the autobiographical book by which FBI profiler?

John E. Douglas, the model for the show's Holden Ford, toured prisons interviewing notorious murderers to build the FBI's profiling method; he wrote Mindhunter with Mark Olshaker after retiring in 1995.

Which killer, played by Cameron Britton, first helps the agents in Mindhunter season 1?

Edmund Kemper, the towering 'Co-ed Killer', is the first murderer the agents interview; the real Kemper gave himself up in 1973, phoning police from a Colorado phone booth to confess.

Which FBI database lets crime labs across the United States compare DNA profiles?

CODIS, the Combined DNA Index System, went national in 1998; for privacy it stores no names, so after a match the labs involved must contact each other to learn whose profile it is.

Who was the only suspect police ever named in the Zodiac Killer case?

Arthur Leigh Allen, who lived in Vallejo, was the only suspect police ever named; he was never charged before his death in 1992, and DNA later taken from Zodiac stamps and envelopes did not match him.

What was the job of the Zodiac Killer's San Francisco victim in 1969?

Cabdriver Paul Stine was shot in Presidio Heights, and the killer mailed a swatch of Stine's shirt to the Chronicle with a letter claiming the murder; two of the Zodiac's seven victims survived.

Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, died in 2013 while awaiting execution at which prison?

San Quentin's death row held Ramirez until he died of lymphoma in 2013; he was caught in 1985 when East Los Angeles residents who knew his face from a newspaper front page dragged him from a car he was trying to steal.

Ted Bundy, feigning injury in a sling, asked women to help carry books to what brown or tan car?

A Volkswagen Beetle with its front passenger seat removed gave Bundy away in 1975: a Utah trooper who stopped the car noticed the missing seat and found a ski mask, handcuffs and a crowbar inside.

The Kray twins ran their gang from which East London district?

Bethnal Green was home: the twins grew up at 178 Vallance Road and based the Firm there, yet as West End club owners they also became celebrities, photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television.

In which pub did Ronnie Kray shoot George Cornell dead in 1966?

The Blind Beggar had customers and a barmaid looking on when Ronnie Kray shot George Cornell in March 1966, yet no one would testify and police had to release him; the twins were finally jailed in 1969.

Who led the gang in the 1963 Great Train Robbery?

Bruce Reynolds, an antiques dealer and career thief, planned and led the robbery at Bridego Railway Bridge near Ledburn; he fled to Mexico and was caught in Torquay in 1968.

Ronnie Biggs escaped Wandsworth Prison in 1965 by what means?

A rope ladder over the wall took Biggs out of Wandsworth on 8 July 1965, dropping him onto a waiting furniture van; he lived as a fugitive for 36 years before returning in 2001.

Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs lived openly for decades in which country that could not extradite him?

Brazil had no extradition treaty with Britain when Biggs arrived in 1970, and fathering a Brazilian child then shielded him; he lived in Rio, even recording with two of the Sex Pistols, until returning in 2001.

What car did the 2002 Beltway snipers travel in?

A blue Chevrolet Caprice, a 1990 model, had a hole cut in its trunk to shoot through; police spent weeks stopping white vans before arresting the pair asleep in the car at a Maryland rest stop.

Chris Watts murdered his family in 2018 in which Colorado town?

Frederick, north of Denver, is where Watts stood outside the family home giving TV interviews that pleaded for his wife and daughters to return; within days he was arrested, and he received five life terms.

Gabby Petito's remains were found in September 2021 in which Wyoming national forest?

Bridger-Teton National Forest: her remains were found near the Spread Creek camping area on 19 September 2021; fiancé Brian Laundrie admitted the killing in a notebook found beside his body.

Which famed lawman at one point led the hunt for the Cleveland Torso Murderer?

Eliot Ness, then Cleveland's safety director, personally led raids on the shantytowns of Kingsbury Run and had them burned down in 1938; the killer of at least twelve people was never caught.

A 1919 letter attributed to the Axeman of New Orleans promised to spare homes playing what?

Jazz music filled the city's dance halls and house parties on the night the letter named, 19 March 1919; no attack followed, and the Axeman was never identified.

The 1912 Villisca axe murders, which killed eight people, took place in which state?

Villisca is in south-west Iowa; Josiah and Sarah Moore, their four children and two Stillinger sisters were bludgeoned with an axe on the night of 9–10 June 1912, and no one was ever convicted.

John Dillinger was shot by law enforcement in July 1934 outside which Chicago venue?

Dillinger was shot by FBI agents as he left the Biograph Theater on Lincoln Avenue on 22 July 1934, after brothel keeper Ana Cumpănaș, the 'Woman in Red', tipped them off.

Charles Ponzi's scheme was based on buying and redeeming what?

Ponzi claimed to profit by buying international postal reply coupons cheaply abroad and redeeming them for US stamps, promising 50% in 45 days; by 1920 he was simply paying old investors with new money.

Austrian killer Jack Unterweger became a celebrity in what field after his 1990 parole?

Unterweger, feted as a reformed writer, worked as a playwright and journalist for Austrian radio and magazines after his 1990 parole, and within months resumed killing sex workers.

Which relative reported Caylee Anthony missing in July 2008, a month after she vanished?

Her grandmother, Cindy, called 911 on 15 July 2008, saying Casey's car smelled of death and that she had not seen Caylee for 31 days; Casey had told no one her daughter was missing.

Where were Caylee Anthony's remains found in December 2008?

Woods near the family home gave up the remains in December 2008, when meter reader Roy Kronk led police to them; he had already phoned in a suspicious bag at the spot three times that August.

The victim in Serial's first season was found in February 1999 in which Baltimore green space?

Leakin Park, in west Baltimore, where her body was found in a shallow grave on 9 February 1999; Adnan Syed's friend Jay Wilds pleaded guilty as an accessory.

Adnan Syed's conviction was vacated in September 2022, then what happened in March 2023?

An appellate court reinstated it on 28 March 2023: Maryland's Appellate Court ruled that the victim's family had been denied proper notice of the vacatur hearing, and stayed its decision for 60 days.

Steven Avery sued over his wrongful conviction for $36 million, but settled in 2006 for how much?

$400,000 was all he took: charged with murder while the lawsuit was pending, Avery settled within months for barely a hundredth of his claim, after 18 years in prison for a rape he did not commit.

In which Los Angeles-area community did Lyle and Erik Menendez kill their parents in 1989?

Beverly Hills was home to the family's Elm Drive mansion; the brothers' lavish spending drew suspicion, and the case broke when their psychologist's former girlfriend told police about taped confessions.

Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her home in 2002 at age 14 in which US state capital?

Salt Lake City: Smart was taken at knifepoint from her bedroom in June 2002; Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee held her for nine months before police found her in Sandy, Utah.

Why did the US Supreme Court overturn osteopath Sam Sheppard's 1954 murder conviction?

A 'carnival atmosphere' at the trial, the Court held in Sheppard v. Maxwell (1966), had denied him a fair hearing amid prejudicial publicity; Sheppard was acquitted at a retrial later that year.

Jim Jones led more than 900 followers to their deaths in 1978 in which country?

Guyana: 918 people died, among them Congressman Leo Ryan, shot at a nearby airstrip; the cyanide-laced drink was reportedly Flavor Aid, though the tragedy gave us the phrase 'drinking the Kool-Aid'.

Why was Timothy McVeigh pulled over about 90 minutes after the Oklahoma City bombing?

Driving without a license plate got McVeigh stopped by trooper Charlie Hanger, who arrested him for carrying a concealed weapon; he was still in the county jail when the FBI identified him as the bombing suspect.

Laci Peterson disappeared on Christmas Eve 2002 from her home in which California city?

Modesto: Laci, heavily pregnant, vanished while husband Scott said he was fishing at Berkeley Marina; the following April her remains and those of unborn son Conner were found on the shore of San Francisco Bay.

In which Arizona city did Jodi Arias murder ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in 2008?

Mesa police found Alexander's new camera in his washing machine; recovered photos placed Arias in the house on the day he died in June 2008, and she was sentenced to life without parole in 2015.

Which 1920s serial killer and cannibal was nicknamed the Gray Man and the Brooklyn Vampire?

Albert Fish was caught in 1934 through a letter he sent to the mother of victim Grace Budd: an emblem on the envelope led detectives to his rooming house. He was executed at Sing Sing in 1936.

Army doctor Jeffrey MacDonald, convicted of the 1970 murders of his family, was stationed at which base?

Fort Bragg, North Carolina: his pregnant wife Colette and daughters Kimberley and Kristen were killed in their Castle Drive quarters in February 1970; MacDonald blamed four intruders and was convicted in 1979.

After shooting John Lennon outside the Dakota in 1980, Mark David Chapman sat reading which novel?

The Catcher in the Rye was meant as his manifesto: Chapman had bought a copy at a nearby bookstore, written inside that it was his statement and signed it as its narrator, Holden Caulfield.

Which actress, wife of director Roman Polanski, was murdered by Charles Manson's followers in 1969?

Sharon Tate was eight and a half months pregnant, and the four people killed with her at the Cielo Drive house included coffee heiress Abigail Folger.

In which Wisconsin city did Jeffrey Dahmer work nights at a chocolate factory before his arrest?

Milwaukee officers were flagged down by Tracy Edwards, who had fled the apartment with a handcuff still attached to his wrist and then led them back to it.

Which Dallas nightclub owner shot Lee Harvey Oswald on live television in a police basement in 1963?

Jack Ruby's murder conviction was overturned on appeal in 1966, but he fell ill with cancer and died before the new trial he had been granted could begin.

Which actress won an Oscar for playing killer Aileen Wuornos in the 2003 film Monster?

Charlize Theron gave what critic Roger Ebert called one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema, and he named Monster the best film of its year.

Which Alfred Hitchcock film has a murderer modelled on Wisconsin killer Ed Gein?

Psycho began as Robert Bloch's 1959 novel, and Gein went on to inspire Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs.

Andrew Cunanan shot which fashion designer dead on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion in 1997?

Gianni Versace was the last of Cunanan's victims: eight days later the fugitive was found dead on a luxury houseboat in the same city, leaving no note.

Which 'Blade Runner' Paralympic sprinter was convicted of murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp?

Oscar Pistorius was at first found guilty only of culpable homicide, until South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal overturned that verdict and convicted him of murder.

Which 'Wall of Sound' record producer was convicted in 2009 of murdering actress Lana Clarkson?

Phil Spector, who had produced the Ronettes and the Beatles' Let It Be, was sentenced to 19 years to life and died in prison in 2021.

Which New England Patriots tight end was convicted in 2015 of murdering Odin Lloyd?

Aaron Hernandez had signed a $40 million contract extension less than a year before the killing, and the Patriots released him about ninety minutes after his arrest.

Which gang member shot outlaw Jesse James in the back of the head in 1882 as he dusted a picture?

Robert Ford had been promised a full pardon by Missouri's governor if he killed James, and the Ford brothers wired him to claim their reward straight after the shooting.

Ted Bundy escaped in 1977 by jumping from a courthouse law library window in which Colorado town?

Aspen was also where he was retaken: after six days as a fugitive, cold and limping on a sprained ankle, he was pulled over when his car was seen weaving in and out of its lane.

James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to shooting Martin Luther King Jr. on which Memphis lodging's balcony?

Lorraine Motel is now part of the National Civil Rights Museum, and King had paused outside room 306 to chat with people in the courtyard below when he was hit.

Sirhan Sirhan shot Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 in the kitchen pantry of which Los Angeles hotel?

The Ambassador had hosted six Oscar ceremonies and every president from Hoover to Nixon; Kennedy had just addressed supporters in its Embassy Ballroom.

In which city did Charles Whitman open fire from a university tower's observation deck in 1966?

Austin officers ended the University of Texas attack after about 96 minutes; an autopsy found a pecan-sized tumour in the Marine veteran's brain, though its role is disputed.

The eight women Richard Speck murdered in a Chicago townhouse in 1966 all worked or trained as what?

Nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital shared the townhouse; a ninth, Corazon Amurao, survived by hiding beneath a bed and later pointed Speck out in court.

Charles Starkweather's 1958 murder spree with girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate began in which US state?

Nebraska is also the title of the Bruce Springsteen song the spree inspired, and the killings were the basis of the 1973 film Badlands.

Killer Dennis Nilsen was caught in 1983 when human remains blocked what at his Muswell Hill flat?

The drains were opened by a Dyno-Rod engineer after tenants complained, and Nilsen himself had written to the estate agents to say the blockage was intolerable.

Charles Sobhraj, 'Bikini Killer' of the 1970s hippie trail, inspired which BBC and Netflix drama?

The Serpent was his other nickname, earned by a snake-like ability to avoid detection by the authorities as he robbed and killed tourists across Asia.

Robert Hansen flew captives into the wilderness in his own plane and hunted them in which US state?

Alaska knew him as an Anchorage bakery owner who was well liked by his neighbours and held several local hunting records.

Which singer paid a $240,000 ransom after his 19-year-old son was kidnapped at Lake Tahoe in 1963?

Frank Sinatra had offered the kidnappers $1 million, but they turned down the larger sum, took what they had first asked for and freed his son two days later.

Kidnappers of oil heir John Paul Getty III mailed which part of his body to a Rome newspaper?

An ear arrived after his billionaire grandfather had refused to pay; he then agreed to a new, lower demand, and the teenager was freed five months after being taken.

Etan Patz, who vanished in Manhattan in 1979, was among the first missing children pictured on what?

Milk cartons carried the six-year-old's photograph in the 1980s, and Ronald Reagan made May 25, the date he disappeared, National Missing Children's Day.

Stockholm syndrome takes its name from hostages held in 1973 during an attempted robbery of what?

A bank called Kreditbanken was the scene, where four staff were held in a vault for six days; despite its fame, the syndrome has never been listed in the DSM.

Kidnappers who seized a Chowchilla school bus in 1976 hid 26 children and their driver inside what?

A buried truck trailer in a quarry held them until the driver and the older children stacked mattresses to reach the roof hatch and got out before any ransom demand was made.

Which far-left group kidnapped former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro in Rome in 1978?

Red Brigades gunmen ambushed his car on the morning of a parliamentary confidence vote, and after 54 days his body was left in the boot of a Renault 4.

Who held Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight captive in his Cleveland house until 2013?

Ariel Castro's captives were freed when Berry cried for help from behind a locked door and two neighbours helped her break through it and call 911.

Natascha Kampusch escaped in 2006 after eight years in a secret cellar near which European capital?

Vienna police examined 776 minivans in the search, her kidnapper's among them, yet she stayed hidden in a town about half an hour's drive from the city.

Which gangster got a life sentence for kidnapping Oklahoma City oil tycoon Charles Urschel in 1933?

Machine Gun Kelly was undone by his blindfolded captive, who memorised background sounds, counted footsteps and left fingerprints on the surfaces in reach for the FBI to find.

Jaycee Dugard was found alive in 2009 after her captor of 18 years visited which university campus?

UC Berkeley staff found him erratic and the two girls with him sullen, so an officer ran a background check that showed he was on parole for kidnapping and rape.

A man who stabbed a passenger and set fire to a Tokyo train on Halloween 2021 was dressed as whom?

The Joker outfit meant some passengers took the attack for a Halloween stunt until others began to flee; the attacker was later sentenced to 23 years in prison.

Which prime minister was shot dead by two of her own bodyguards on Halloween morning in 1984?

Indira Gandhi was killed at her New Delhi residence months after ordering Operation Blue Star, the army's assault on Sikh militants inside the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

Which US city was notorious in the 1980s for 'Devil's Night' arson on the night before Halloween?

Detroit answered with Angels' Night, when tens of thousands of volunteers patrolled the streets, and the city ended its official support in 2018 after arson had declined significantly.

Ronald Clark O'Bryan killed his own son on Halloween 1974 with cyanide hidden in which sweet?

Pixy Stix laced with cyanide also went to his daughter and three other children to disguise the plan: the Texas optician was $100,000 in debt and wanted his son's life insurance.

A man who killed eight people in Manhattan on Halloween 2017 drove a rented truck down what?

A bike path in Hudson River Park was the scene, about a mile of it, and anti-vehicle bollards were installed along the route after the attack.

Martha Moxley was killed in Connecticut on the eve of Halloween 1975 with what improvised weapon?

A golf club, a six-iron matched to a set owned by the mother of neighbour Michael Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, was found in pieces near her body.

California dentist William Shyne was charged in 1959 for giving trick-or-treaters candy-coated what?

Laxatives dressed up as sweets brought him charges of outrage of public decency and unlawful dispensing of drugs; no stranger has ever been proven to have killed a child with Halloween candy.

Peter Braunstein set off smoke bombs in a Manhattan lobby on Halloween 2005 while dressed as what?

A firefighter's uniform got the former Women's Wear Daily writer into his victim's building, and he became New York City's most wanted man until his capture that December.

Yoshihiro Hattori, shot at the wrong door before a 1992 Halloween party, wore which film's costume?

Saturday Night Fever's white suit was the Japanese exchange student's outfit; the homeowner who shot the 16-year-old was acquitted of manslaughter but found liable in a civil trial.

Which reporter, played on film by Robert Downey Jr., was sent a Halloween card by the Zodiac Killer?

Paul Avery began carrying a revolver after the threat, while his San Francisco Chronicle colleagues wore campaign-style buttons declaring that they were not him.

Which future president ran full-page death-penalty ads after the Central Park Five confessed?

Donald Trump placed the ads in all four of the city's major newspapers about ten days after the boys began to confess; their convictions were vacated in 2002.

Which actor played Gerry Conlon, jailed on a coerced confession, in In the Name of the Father?

Daniel Day-Lewis lost more than 23 kilograms for the part and spent three days and nights in a jail cell, kept from sleeping, to grasp how an innocent man could sign a confession.

Which Texas governor commuted the death sentence of Henry Lee Lucas, the 'Confession Killer'?

George W. Bush commuted no other death sentence as governor; Lucas had falsely confessed to about 600 murders, and a state attorney general's inquiry judged him a fabulist.

In which country was John Mark Karr arrested after falsely confessing to killing JonBenét Ramsey?

Thailand was where the 41-year-old teacher was held in 2006, but his account gave only publicly known facts and his DNA did not match DNA found on her body.

Iwao Hakamata, acquitted in 2024 after decades on Japan's death row, had been a professional what?

Boxer Hakamata confessed only after 264 hours of questioning spread over 23 days, by his lawyers' count; in 2011 Guinness World Records certified him as the world's longest-held death row inmate.

French watchmaker Robert Hubert was hanged after falsely confessing to starting which disaster?

Great Fire of London records clear him: a ship's captain later testified that he had landed Hubert in England two days after the blaze began.

Which neighbour was exposed as the real killer three years after Timothy Evans was hanged in 1950?

John Christie had been the chief prosecution witness against Evans, who had given police more than one confession; Evans received a posthumous pardon in 1966.

In which country did psychiatric patient Thomas Quick falsely confess to more than 30 murders?

Sweden convicted him of eight of the killings on his word alone before he withdrew every confession in 2008, an affair since called the largest miscarriage of justice in its history.

Which playwright championed teenager Peter Reilly after a coerced confession to killing his mother?

Arthur Miller made the Connecticut case a public issue and asked The New York Times to investigate; Reilly had confessed after more than twenty hours of interrogation.

Which interrogation method named after a Chicago polygraph expert is blamed for false confessions?

The Reid technique's namesake drew a 1955 confession from Darrel Parker, who recanted the next day and was later paid $500,000 by the state for wrongful conviction.