True Crime On This Day August 5th

August 5th

On August 5th in true crime, Sofitel massacre, murder in Waldo, consulate attack, unsolved homicide, cold cases, and a serial killer.

1978

The body of Sandra DeBose was discovered in West Cocoa, Florida. She had been shot to death and was one of many victims of a horrific serial killer named Gerald Stano.

If ever there was a case of nature versus nurture and nature winning out, then Stano was it. He is Florida’s worst serial killer and has been linked with up to 90 murders.

1979

In Newport Beach, California, 17-year-old German tourist Marcus Grabs was raped and brutally murdered.

Grabs was backpacking the United States when serial killer William George Bonin and accomplice Vernon Butts approached him.

Grabs was raped, beaten, and stabbed 77 times. His restrained and nude body was discovered the next day beside a road in Malibu.

William Bonin became known as The Freeway Killer. He was known to dump his victim’s bodies on the side of freeways.

Bonin killed at least 21 people from 1979 to 1980. Vernon Butts, who helped Bonin kill some of his victims, took his own life in 1981 while awaiting trial.

1980

Just five Days after the shooting in Athens, another shooting takes place in Lyon, France. The attack was orchestrated by members of Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), who had carried out the shooting in Athens.

In Lyon, two gunmen attacked the Turkish Consulate General and shot dead the doorman. They then stormed the foyer and opened fire, killing one more and injuring another 11.

Although the ASALA claimed responsibility, no suspects have ever been arrested.

1981

In Shelby County, Tennessee, Philip Ray Workman killed a Memphis police officer who approached him after he had robbed a Wendy’s restaurant.

43-year-old Memphis Police Lieutenant Ronald Oliver and Officer Aubrey Stoddard had responded to a robbery alarm.

A scuffle ensued and Workman broke free from the officers. He then shot Oliver in the chest and Stoddard in the arm.

Workman was later found hiding in nearby bushes and woodland, with the murder weapon in his hands. He claimed his judgement had been skewed as he had been using cocaine in high amounts during the course of the day.

He later told investigators that Oliver had been shot by another officer. Despite his claims and multiple appeals, he was sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection in Louisiana on May 9^th 2007.

1982

In Waldo, New Mexico, Father Reynaldo Rivera, a priest at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis in Santa Fe, was murdered.

His body was found in a remote field, three days later, he had been shot once in the stomach and then strangled with wire.

His murder was later linked to the July 20^th 1984 murder of Father John Kerrigan in Montana. The circumstances surrounding both men’s death were similar and caught the attention of the FBI, who intervened in the investigation.

Despite claims of faked deaths and implications of paedophilia, the murders have never been solved.

1983

In Avignon, France, three gunmen entered a luxury Sofitel hotel and killed seven people in a robbery and mass shooting.

Four of the dead were employees and another three were patrons of the hotel. An investigation learned that the three men, Jean Roussel, François Arpinot, and Gérard Rolland, were attempting to rob the hotel’s safe deposit boxes and they killed the victims to eliminate any witnesses.

The attack happened shortly after France abolished the death penalty. Roussel was arrested shortly after and died from a heart attack in 1985. Arpinot and Rolland were arrested after Roussel’s death and were sentenced from 15 to 18 years in prison.

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