True Crime On This Day July 12th

July 12th

On July 12th in true crime, crime boss shooting, cold case disappearances, double murder, rampage in Texas, and murder in Virginia.

1978

In Southampton County, Virginia, Willie Lloyd Turner was arrested for the robbery and murder of jewellery store owner W. Jack Smith Jr.

Turner was a career criminal who had previously murdered another prisoner while incarcerated in 1970. He was sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection in Virginia on May 25^th 1995.

1979

In New York, the boss of the Bonanno crime family, Carmine ‘Lilo’ Galante, was gunned down. He was killed along with other members of his family, at Joe & Mary’s Italian Restaurant, on Knickerbocker Avenue, Brooklyn.

The shooting was carried out by members of rival crime family factions who had joined forces to rid themselves of Galante.

1980

In New South Wales, Australia, 20-year-old Deborah Susan Balken and her friend, 20-year-old Gillian Jamieson, disappeared after leaving a hotel with an unidentified man.

Both worked as nurses in Sydney and had visited the Tollgate Hotel in Parramatta. The man they left with was described as dirty and wearing a cowboy hat.

Balken phoned her flatmate just over an hour later and told her that she and Jamieson were going to hitchhike from Wollongong to Sydney, a 50-mile journey.

They never made it to Sydney and no trace of them has ever been found. Despite a history of hitchhiking and drug use, investigators believed they had been met with foul play. The mystery has never been solved.

1981

In Dallas, Texas, shortly after attending church, president of the Arco Oil and Gas Company William A. Keeler, and his wife, Anita, were fatally shot at their home.

Their daughter found them shortly after, but William had already died. Anita held on long enough to let her daughter know that David had done it. David Keeler was their 14-year-old son.

He rode his bicycle to the police station the same day and said to officers that he killed both his parents with a shotgun. As he was under the age of 15, he could not face adult murder charges, instead he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

David was released on his 18^th Birthday, and successfully claimed his share of his parents $1.2million (USD) estate.

1982

In Charlottesville, Virginia, 12-year-old Katherine Sybil Worsky went missing and was suspected to have been abducted.

She was a diabetic who disappeared from her friend’s house but left her insulin and personal belongings behind. The case went unsolved until 1983 when store clerk Glenn Barker was charged with Worsky’s murder.

Despite no body ever having been found, Barker was convicted of second-degree murder. It was only the second time in Virginia’s history a man had been tried and convicted of murder without the presence of a body.

He served nine years in jail and was released on parole in 1992. Shortly after, Barker was suspected of a double murder but there was no evidence to charge him. Worsky’s body has never been found.

1983

From July 11^th to the 15^th, in Harris County, Texas, Raymond Deleon Martinez went on a robbery and murder rampage, leaving five people dead.

On the 11^th, Martinez and two accomplices robbed Dom Ramon’s Lounge in Houston at gunpoint. During that robbery, Moses Mendez was shot dead.

On July 12^th, Martinez robbed Elaine’s, another Harris County bar. During that robbery, Martinez assaulted and beat Ollie Skogebo, who was drinking in the bar.

On July 15^th Martinez fatally shot his sister Julia Martinez and her boyfriend Guillermo “Willie” Chavez Martinez.

Later the same day, he shot a sex worker who had left his hotel room and had taken too long to return. He wounded her and she crawled to the road for help, but he shot her many more times, leaving her dead where she fell.

Martinez was arrested after soliciting teenage girls to join his self-proclaimed crime syndicate. On July 18^th, 1984, Martinez was sentenced to death.

Despite having his sentenced reversed, he was again sentenced to death in 1989. After 33 years on death row, he died of natural causes on August 8^th, 2017.

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