True Crime On This Day August 28th

August 28th

On August 28th in true crime, serial killers, the Thrill Killer, wrongful conviction, nude in the nettles, mystery death, cold case murder.

1978

In Preston, England, an unidentified man was found suffering from hypothermia on a farm in Longton. He was taken to hospital where he died shortly after.

His last words were, ‘I want to go back to Warner Park.’ The European man was aged between 30 to 50-years-old and was wearing a grey suit. As of 2022, the identity of the man remains a mystery.

1979

In Bristol, England, 32-year-old Wendy Jenkins was brutally murdered. She had been working as a prostitute at the time who plied her trade in the area of St. Pauls.

She had been beaten and stabbed to death before being buried in a shallow grave at a building site sandpit where workers found her shortly after.

Despite her death being linked with Peter Sutcliffe, AKA: The Yorkshire Ripper, her murder remains unsolved.

1980

In Sofia City, Bulgaria, serial killer Hristo Bogdanov Georgiev, AKA: The Sadist, was executed for the murders of five women between 1974 and 1980.

His final victim was in March of 1980 when he attacked Angelo Pantova on a train line. He stabbed her in the back, but she managed to crawl over 30 metres, before Georgiev walked up behind her, raped her, and then strangled her to death.

The murders were only connected in 1979, when similarities began to arise. Investigators discovered a world of major criminals, sex parties, mentally ill suspects, and murder.

Georgiev was arrested in April of 1980 and fast-tracked through the courts. He was executed by firing squad.

1981

In North Yorkshire, England, the body of an unidentified female was discovered under a bush near Sutton Bank.

In the early hours of the morning, the local police station received a call from an unidentified well-spoken man who described to an officer where he could find the body.

When asked his name, he stated that he could not give out this information ‘for reasons of national security’. The body was found shortly after near a popular picnic site.

An investigation found that the body had remained undisturbed for at least two years and that she had been murdered but they never divulged how she had died.

They even investigated the possibility that she had been an escaped convict from the Askham Grange open prison. Despite remaining a fugitive, the escaped prisoner posted her fingerprints to investigators to prove she was alive.

In 2013, investigators added the victim’s DNA profile to a national database but to this day, the murder remains unsolved.

1982

In New Jersey, 18-year-old Anna Olesiewicz, was lured away from the Asbury Park boardwalk and shot four times in the head.

Her body was dumped behind a Burger King in Ocean Township. She had been murdered by serial killer Richard Biegenwald, AKA: The Thrill Killer.

Biegenwald was an American serial killer who murdered at least six people over a 25-year period from 1958 to 1983 and is suspected of two other murders in the same time frame.

He would mostly shoot his victims but some were stabbed. Biegenwald was arrested in 1983 and sentenced to death which was later commuted to life. He died in 2008 of natural causes in prison.

1983

At the Devils Lake Sioux Reservation, North Dakota, the body of Edward Peltier was discovered on the side of the road.

He was originally treated as a hit-and-run victim, but in 1985, police collected statements that claimed Peltier had been beaten to death by a group of eleven men. They arrested Richard LaFuente and ten other men.

At the trial, there was no evidence to suggest any of the men had been near the murder scene, and each and every one of them had an alibi.

Despite weaknesses in the case, all eleven men were convicted of murder. Shortly after, nine of the convictions were overturned and the men were freed – due to a lack of evidence.

LaFuente and another man, Perez, were kept in jail. The family of Peltier came forward and claimed that LaFuente and Perez were not involved in the murder and wanted them released.

Despite their innocence, they would only be allowed to be freed on parole if they admitted their guilt and showed remorse.

Both men could not admit to something they didn’t do.

In 2013, having been in jail for 28 years, they were freed, with help from the Great North Innocence Project. A new investigation is no closer to discovering Edward Peltier’s true killer.

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