True Crime On This Day April 3rd

Last Updated on September 23, 2022 by Ben Oakley

April 3rd

On April 3rd in true crime, multiple prison escapes, drug war murders in Miami, cold case mystery, massacre in Peru.

1978

In Henry County, Atlanta, Emmet Bass was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

On April 3^rd 1978, he was carrying out prison work on a highway when he went to relieve himself in the trees but saw a chance of escape and carried on walking into the woods.

Bass would remain a fugitive for 27 years until he was recaptured when he filed for social security benefits. He spent 10 more months in jail before being released on parole.

1979

In Miami, murders during the build-up to the Miami Drug Wars were increasing rapidly and the police were beginning to see it as a real problem.

In broad daylight, Domingo Vior was shot dead as he waked into a grocery store. On the other side of the city, a few hours later, Danny Quintana was shot in the back of the head in the bathroom of a Miami bar.

Both men were part of the rising cocaine trade in the city. The killers of both men have never been identified.

1980

In Maryland, 18-year-old Cynthia Joan Gastelle disappeared while heading for a job interview at a deli in Takoma Park.

Her disappearance remained unsolved until her skeletal remains were discovered on February 12^th 1982 on Bull Run Mountain. Investigators confirmed that an unidentified killer had killed her.

Gastelle was not identified until 2012 when a DNA match from a relative came back. Over 40 years later, her murder remains unsolved.

1981

In Delmar, New York, the decomposing body of an unidentified white male between the ages of 30 to 60-years-old was discovered on the edges of a horse farm.

Based on evidence from the scene, it was suggested the man disappeared shortly after New Year’s Day. Besides the man’s identity, police still don’t know how he died, where he came from, and how he came to be at the farm.

He was discovered with copies of the January 1^st 1981 Spotlight News and Ravena News-Herald newspapers, and remnants of a bus ticket that was not legible.

In early 2019, authorities managed to successfully create a DNA profile of the man, but he remains unidentified. A cold case investigation is currently ongoing.

1982

In Maryland, 22-year-old Frostburg State University student Stephanie Roper was kidnapped, repeatedly raped, tortured, shot dead, and partially dismembered.

She had been killed by Jack Ronald Jones and Jerry Lee Beatty, who kidnapped her after she ran into car trouble on a dark rural road.

After raping her, they realised they had used their real names and decided to kill her and cut her up to hide the body.

They were arrested when they bragged about what they had done. Both men were sentenced to two concurrent life sentenced for kidnapping, rape, and murder.

The Crime Victims’ Rights Act of 2004 was introduced partially for Stephanie, whose parents were not notified of trial continuances, were excluded from proceedings, and were prevented from giving a victim impact statement.

The Act grants victims those and other rights in federal criminal cases.

1983

In Lucanamarca, Peru, the Lucanamarca Massacre took place and left 69 people dead. The massacre was carried out by members of the Shining Path, a Maoist guerrilla and terrorist organisation whose goal was to install a Maoist government.

They had gone to war with Peruvian State on May 17^th 1980 and their activity didn’t begin declining until 2012. 18 of their victims in Lucanamarca were children, with one as young as six-months-old.

All 69 had been hacked to death with machetes and axes before being shot. Some members who carried out the attack were arrested in Lima in 1992.

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