True Crime On This Day February 28th

Last Updated on September 21, 2022 by Ben Oakley

February 28th

On February 28th in true crime, serial killing babysitter, cold case double murder, shooting, mystery disappearance, and unsolved murder.

1978

In Denver, Colorado, Thomas Gutierrez was shot dead while his wife received gunshot wounds that she survived. Both were returning home from a funeral when they got out of their car and walked towards their home.

Witnesses then heard gunshots and found both Thomas and his wife motionless on the ground. Thomas died in hospital and his wife survived the attack.

There was no obvious motive for the attack and a suspect was never found. As of 2022, the shooting and murder are part of an active cold case in the State of Colorado.

1979

In Manchester, England, the bodies of 30-year-old Joe Gallagher and his girlfriend, 20-year-old Freda Hunter, were discovered in the bedroom of their home by a friend.

They had last been seen four days earlier when Joe had picked Freda up from her bar job. Investigators found that they had been dead for at least three days and had been beaten to death with a blunt weapon.

Joe’s wage packet had been stolen and he was known to have dealt in Marijuana but no real motive has ever been found. As of 2022, their murders remain unsolved.

1980

In Florida, two-year-old Cassidy Johnson died from what was assumed to be encephalitis, after having been rushed to hospital a few days earlier.

A later autopsy report showed that Cassidy had suffered a severe skull injury. Unbeknownst to investigators at the time, she had been murdered by serial killing babysitter Christine Falling, who was only 16-years-old.

Between 1980 and 1982, Falling murdered five children by suffocating them. She later claimed that she was hearing voices telling her to do it.

After a lengthy investigation, Falling was arrested in 1982 and later convicted of three of the murders. She was sentenced to life in prison.

1981

In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a newborn baby was found dead in a ditch. Baby Andrew John Doe, as he became known, was alive when left in the cornfield a day earlier.

The placenta was still attached to the infant and blood was found on women’s underwear next to him. He had died of exposure. The case went cold very quickly but investigators never gave up.

In 2009, they exhumed Baby Andrew’s body to obtain DNA and see if they could match it. Ten years later, in 2019, a DNA genealogist from Parabon NanoLabs, used genealogy websites and databases to eventually link 57-year-old Theresa Rose Bentaas to the child’s death.

Bentaas admitted to the birth and was charged with first-degree murder. A November 2020 trial was delayed due to Covid-19.

1982

In Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, 44-year-old Jacqueline G. Simpson disappeared under suspicious circumstances. She was last seen at the Magic Lamp Bar and Grill where she worked and was reported missing by her daughter when she failed to return home.

Simpson had recently ended an on and off relationship with the bar’s owner Gary R. Kunish. Spots of blood were found in the bar which led to a massive forensic search of the entire building, including the basement and grounds surrounding it.

Despite not having any murder weapon, witnesses, or confession, Kunish was convicted of the murder and served three and half years in prison. He died in 1996, still maintaining his innocence. Simpson’s body has never been found.

1983

In St. Louis, Missouri, the body of an unidentified girl aged between eight and ten, was discovered in an abandoned house.

She had been raped, strangled to death, and then decapitated just a couple of days earlier. Her head has never been recovered and she has never been identified.

An investigation believed she was murdered elsewhere and dumped at the location. They discovered that her blood was drained from her body.

In 2013, her body was exhumed for forensic testing but the case has never moved forward and remains unsolved. She was also known as Hope or Little Jane Doe.

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