True Crime On This Day February 4th

Last Updated on September 20, 2022 by Ben Oakley

February 4th

On February 4th in true crime, Columbian conflict, cold case in Colorado, double murder in Northern Ireland, and amateur assassins.

1978

In Colombia, as part of the Colombian Conflict, 10 soldiers were killed in an ambush. Guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC), were responsible for the murders in the Carare-Opon region.

The conflict escalated with the War on Drugs in the 1990s. Almost 250,000 people have lost their lives since the mid-1960s, as a result of the conflict.

1979

In the early hours of the morning in Denver, Colorado, a bar fight broke out at the Los Pancho’s Restaurant and erupted into the parking lot.

Multiple gunshots were fired off which resulted in 27-year-old David Moreno being killed and another person being injured.

A veil of silence dropped over the witnesses and suspects and no charges have ever been made. As of 2022, it remains an active cold case with the Denver Police Department.

1980

In Belfast, Northern Ireland, 60-year-old ex-prison officer Patrick Mackin and his wife, 58-year-old Violet Mackin, were shot dead in their own home.

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) had assassinated the devout Catholics. No one was ever arrested for the murders. Their deaths were linked to the troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s.

1981

In Washington D.C., United States Congressman Jon Hinson was arrested for performing oral sex on a 28-year-old employee of the Library of Congress.

Investigators learned that the incident had taken place in a restroom in a Congressional office building. In 1980, same-sex sexual activity was illegal in many States.

Hinson and the employee were charged with homosexual sodomy which was a criminal offence at the time. Hinson resigned from his position just a month later.

Same-sex sexual activity only become nationally legal in the United States in 2003. Prior to the 2003 ruling, it was illegal to have sexual relations with the same sex in 14 different States.

1982

In West Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, Danny Weeks, Mark Weeks, and Patricia Ann Ester, were arrested for the murder of Sergeant Major Hubert Ester, on Christmas Day 1981.

His body was discovered early the next morning, on a quiet country road. An autopsy showed he had died from massive blood loss caused by a shotgun blast to the arm and chest, along with being beaten around the head.

He had been murdered by Danny and his younger brother Mark, after they had been hired as amateur hitmen by Hubert’s wife, Patricia. She lured Hubert to the rural road where the brothers then killed him.

Mark was a juvenile, and leniency was shown in return for a testimony. Patricia and Danny were convicted of first and second-degree murder and were sentenced to life in prison.

1983

In Nueces County, Texas, 24-year old Wanda Jean Lopez was stabbed to death during a robbery. She was working the night shift at a gas station convenience store when Carlos De Luna entered the store and robbed her.

During the robbery, Lopez made a 911 call and told a dispatcher that a man was in the store brandishing a knife, but the dispatcher failed to recognise the urgency of the situation and the call went dead.

A few minutes later, after being stabbed, Lopez managed to make another 911 call. The first dispatcher and second dispatcher’s slow questioning was suggested to have led to her death.

Had police arrived at the scene in a reasonable time frame then it was suggested that Lopez may have lived.

De Luna was found shortly after hiding underneath a pick-up truck. He claimed he was in the store and ran out when the man with a knife walked in.

De Luna was mentally impaired and had no traces of blood on him. Witnesses suggested a different man as the suspect, and in later years, another man confessed to his friends, but it was never followed up.

Despite claiming innocence and being convicted on minimal evidence, De Luna was sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal injection in Texas on December 7^th 1989. Prosecutors have since claimed they were only reasonably confident he was the killer.

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