True Crime On This Day April 21st

Last Updated on September 23, 2022 by Ben Oakley

April 21st

On April 21st in true crime, mystery in Australia, murder in Alabama, armed robbery, unidentified body, cold cases, and unsolved crimes.

1978

In Alabama, 18-year-old Teresa Carol White was found strangled to death in a wooded area near Lake Nicol Dam.

35 years later in 2013, already convicted killer James Michael Hayes was charged with her murder. He was already serving a life sentence for killing Regina Quarles in August of 1978.

1979

In Lake Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia, a second teenage girl went missing in just two weeks. 14-year-old Amanda Robinson was last seen at a bus stop before she vanished without a trace.

Two weeks earlier, 18-year-old Robyn Hickie also vanished after last being seen at a bus stop. Another girl in 1994 was last seen being bundled into a car.

Despite numerous pleas and a long-running investigation, the fates of all three girls remain unknown.

No bodies have been found and no evidence has been unearthed but it is assumed by investigators that the girls most likely would have been killed. As of 2022, a cold case investigation is still active.

1980

In Aurora, Colorado, Stephan D. LaFree returned home in the afternoon to find his wife, 25-year-old Ann LaFree, bleeding out from multiple wounds.

He first found his daughter who was hiding in her own bedroom and then found his wife on the bathroom floor. The motive was suspected to be robbery, but it was never confirmed.

LaFree died of her injuries shortly after and a murder investigation was opened. The identity of her killer remains a mystery.

1981

Just before noon, in Houston, Texas, an armoured truck driven by Olivero Flores and Dorothy Wright, pulled into the Sage grocery store to make a pickup when it was attacked.

As Flores exited the van, Ronald Means and Carlos Santana jumped out of a parked car and shot Flores dead when they suspected he was going for his weapon.

They then broke into the driver’s side of the van and aimed their weapons through the wire mesh to the back of the van where Dorothy was taking cover.

Fearing for her life, she opened the back door and exited the truck. The two men then drove off in the truck but were caught shortly after while hiding in a field.

Despite not knowing who had fired the weapon that killed Flores, both men were convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

Santana was executed by lethal injection on March 23^rd 1992. Means was executed by lethal injection in 1998.

1982

In St. Paul, Minnesota, Richard Preuss was accosted by two men as he was entering his apartment at 138 Arundel. He was being robbed at knifepoint and gunpoint by Billy Kennedy and Tyrone Banks.

An 86-year-old neighbour and building manager, William Korbett, heard the commotion and shouted out that he was going to get his gun.

Preuss managed to escape and ran off down the hallway when Banks fired two shots which missed him. When Korbett exited his own apartment, his gun went off inadvertently and hit Preuss in the chest.

Preuss survived but suffered life-changing paralysis of the right diaphragm. He later identified Kennedy and Banks as his attackers, who were sentenced to 15 years each for attempted first degree murder. No charges were pressed against Korbett.

1983

In Cadiz, Kentucky, the decomposed body of a 30 to 50-year-old white man was discovered by walkers, in a drift pile on the shoreline of Lake Barkley.

He had been dead for at least three months, and despite all his body parts being recovered, no part of him was recognisable. The identity of the man has long remained a mystery.

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