True Crime On This Day August 21st

August 21st

On August 21st in true crime, massacre, the Ditch Bank Killer, serial killers, mystery body in California, murder, and unsolved true crime.

1978

In Salt Lake City, 37-year-old Richard E. Stanley was walking alone at the Oakridge Campground in Big Cottonwood Canyon.

In an unprovoked attack, a lone suspect armed with a knife jumped from the nearby bushes and stabbed him to death before making his getaway. The murder remains unsolved.

1979

In Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, 27-year-old Diane Parker was fatally stabbed 22 times by her neighbour Michael Van McDougal who had tricked his way into her home.

He was arrested the same day. Parker’s roommate was stabbed nine times but went on to survive the attack and later testified at McDougal’s trial.

He was sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection in North Carolina on October 18^th 1991

1981

In Los Angeles County, California, an unidentified female died in hospital of severe head injuries. She had been found on August 6^th lying face down in the hallway of an apartment building at 323 East 5th Street in Los Angeles.

She was rushed to hospital where she underwent an emergency craniotomy. She remained unconscious in hospital until her death on the 21^st.

Local residents had called paramedics but could not identify the woman. She was a white adult female in her thirties. The circumstances of her injuries, and her identity, remain a mystery.

1982

In El Calabozo, El Salvador, during the Salvadoran Civil War, the El Calabozo massacre took place. The area had been bombed for several days before the Salvadoran Army sent in ground troops, causing many civilians to flee the area.

The Atlacatl Battalion rounded up a large group of villagers who were trying to flee then opened fire on them. More than 200 people were killed, including children, women, and the elderly.

The soldiers then threw some of the bodies in the river and doused the rest in acid, which made a death toll near impossible to count.

Shortly after, it was reported that over 200 villagers were unaccounted for. Despite survivors and United States’ investigations, the Salvadoran Government has never acknowledged the massacre existed.

1983

In Selma, California, 21-year-old Karen Robinson was lured into a car and driven to a remote location, before being raped and killed.

Her half-naked body was discovered the next day in an irrigation ditch, she had been beaten and drowned to death.

Robinson had been murdered by American serial killer Wilbur Lee Jennings, AKA: The Ditch Bank Killer, who killed at least six young women from 1981 to 1984.

He would leave the bodies of his victims in various ditches and canals around Fresno and Sacramento.

Jennings was arrested in September 1984 and subsequently convicted of four of the murders. He was sentenced to death and died of cancer in 2014 while awaiting trial for additional murders.

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