True Crime On This Day July 13th

July 13th

On July 13th in true crime, human vs. particle accelerator, double execution, shooting in Spain, unsolved homicide, bomb attack.

1978

Russian scientist, Anatoli Petrovich Bugorski was a researcher who worked with largest Soviet particle accelerator, the U-70 Synchrotron.

Bugorski was checking a piece of equipment when the safety mechanisms failed, and he ended up sticking his head into the path of a fully powered proton beam travelling at the speed of light.

His face swelled up beyond recognition and his skin started to peel which revealed the path the beam had taken through his head. Bugorski miraculously went on to survive but his left side was paralysed, and he suffered ongoing seizures.

Despite the failing of the safety measures, no one was held to account and the Russian Government put a lid on the incident for over a decade.

1979

In Guam, former police officer and known drug trafficker Felix M. Garrido was shot dead in his own home. His girlfriend, Dora Scharff, who was with him at the time was also killed in an apparent execution.

The next day, Dora’s father, a retired police detective named George Scharff, vowed to hunt down the killer.

1980

In Orio, Spain, a group of Spanish Civil Guards were ambushed in an attack by members of the Basque nationalist group, ETA. Two guards were killed in the gun attack and three injured.

The guards managed to kill two of the ETA attackers. Between 1968 and 2010, the ETA had killed 829 people and injured thousands more.

They were classified as a terrorist group by many countries in the West. The 1980s attacks on civil guards were described as a ‘dirty war’.

1981

In Jefferson County, Colorado, the body of 18-year-old Elvin Fuster was found on a property at 4000 Block, Easley Road.

The Josephina’s Restaurant worker had been shot dead just days after being assaulted in Denver. Investigators believed the assault had been related to drugs but has never been confirmed.

Despite witnesses describing a suspicious dark-coloured Chevrolet Camaro nearby, no suspect has ever been caught. Fuster’s murder remains unsolved.

1982

In Speegleville Park, near Lake Waco, Texas, two anglers discovered the bodies of 17-year-old Jill Montgomery, 17-year-old Raylene Rice and 18-year-old Kenneth Franks.

The triple murder became known as the 1982 Lake Waco Murders. The body of Franks was found against a tree with sunglasses covering his eyes.

All three victims had been stabbed multiple times, with both women having been raped and their throats cut.

They had been killed by David Wayne Spence, Gilbert and Anthony Melendez, and Muneer Mohammad Deeb. Spence was sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection on April 3^rd 1997.

The Melendez brothers were given life sentences. Gilbert died in prison in 1998. Anthony died in prison in 2017.

Deeb was sentenced to death, but after a second trial was acquitted on January 12^th 1993, despite many claiming him to be the mastermind of the attacks.

1983

In County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, a 500lb land mine detonated under an Ulster Defence Regiment’s (UDR) mobile patrol at Ballygawley Road, near Dungannon.

It had been carried out by members of the IRA who had noticed the patrol taking the same route at least once a week. Armed with an obvious pattern, they planted the bomb and detonated it by remote when the patrol passed nearby.

Four UDR soldiers were killed in the attack. No one has ever been charged with the bombing. It became known as the Ballygawley Land Mine Attack.

Check out the Mega List of True Crime Podcasts