True Crime On This Day February 1st

February 1st

On February 1st in true crime, Roman Polanski fugitive, gravedigger’s strike, convoy attack, vanished without a trace, and a serial killing Hitler.

1978

Polish film director Roman Polanski skipped bail and fled to France, after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

He pleaded guilty to statutory rape but fled the U.S. before he could be sentenced. As of 2022, Polanski remains in France while various other young women have come forward accusing him of raping them.

1979

In Liverpool, England, a gravedigger’s strike was called off after a two-week protest during the Winter of Discontent. Due to the strike, Liverpool City Council were forced to hire a factory to store 150 corpses until they could be buried.

If the strike had continued, then the council would have buried the bodies in a mass burial at sea. The gravediggers settled for a 14% pay rise.

1980

In Ispaster, Spain, the Basque separatist organisation ETA attacked a convoy of civil guards who were protecting a group of workers and weapons.

The guards were moving the weapons from Esperanza y Cia Arms factory to an unknown location in Bilbao. Six guards were killed by gunfire and grenade attacks.

Two ETA members were also killed by their own grenades. In 1984, Jaime Rementería Beotegui was found guilty of participation in the attack and was sentenced to life in prison but released in 2002.

1981

In Vancouver, Canada, 31-year-old Trinidadian Amy Pierre disappeared without a trace. She had last been seen at her home by her son and was reported missing shortly after.

An investigation went cold almost as soon as it had begun. It wasn’t until many years after that Amy’s husband became a suspect in her disappearance but he is now long deceased and any secrets he may have had are buried with him.

The circumstances surrounding Amy’s disappearance remain unsolved and no trace of her has ever been found.

1982

In Cleveland, Ohio, the body of Reverend Horace T. Rickerson was discovered by a fellow student on the floor of a restroom in the Cleveland State University.

He had been shot seven times with a shotgun at point blank range. He had been killed by American serial killer Frank G. Spisak Jr., AKA: Frankie Ann ‘Hitler’ Spisak, who killed at least three people over the course of 1982.

He was a transvestite killer who claimed he wanted to become Adolf Hitler. Spisak was arrested in September 1982 and subsequently sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal injection in Ohio on February 17^th 2011.

1983

Two people vanished without a trace on the same day, across two different States. In Cleveland, Tennessee, 28-year-old Heller Anne Calia Sample disappeared after leaving her home. She left behind her two-year-old daughter and personal belongings.

In California, 23-year-old Donald James Gregory disappeared after last being seen in the city of Banning. Both of their disappearances remain unsolved, and their cases remain open. No connection between the two has ever been found.

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