True Crime On This Day July 6th

Last Updated on September 27, 2022 by Ben Oakley

July 6th

On July 6th in true crime, bombing, serial killer, murder in Georgia, Toxteth Riots, triple murder in Alabama, unsolved cold cases.

1978

Serial killer Randy Kraft killed a hitchhiker named Keith Klingbeil. He was plied with alcohol and tortured before being strangled with his own shoelace.

His left nipple had also been burned with a car’s cigarette lighter. Klingbeil was found alive but died from his injuries shortly after his arrival at hospital. Kraft would kill at least 16 men between 1971 and 1983.

1979

In a year of IRA attacks, another bomb exploded in Antwerp, Belgium. They had deliberately targeted the British Consulate building in the city. Luckily, there were no fatalities and only minor injuries received by survivors.

1980

In Henry County, Georgia, 22-year-old Kathryn June ‘June Bug’ Moore, was raped and strangled to death by Norman Darnell Baxter.

Moore’s partially decomposing nude body was discovered on July 13^th by tourists hiking a wooded area near a Safari Inn. Baxter was arrested later in the year and convicted of murder.

Despite having spent time in psychiatric hospitals, he was sentenced to death, but it was later commuted to life in prison.

1981

In Liverpool, England, the Toxteth Riots reached their peak after the arrest of 20-year-old Leroy Copper on July 3^rd. He was arrested in front of an angry crowd, and it led to an altercation with the police.

Angry and violent riots began on July 4^th and lasted nine days. There were pitched battles between police and youths throwing missiles, including petrol bombs.

During the course of the nine days, 450 police officers were injured and over 500 people were arrested. More than 70 buildings were demolished or burnt down, including the Rialto Ballroom, where the Beatles famously played.

Milk floats were set alight and pushed into lines of riot police. Many youths were seen breaking down scaffold poles then charging at police with them. Over 100 cars were destroyed, and many shops were looted.

On July 6^th, police began using gas grenades, which was the first use of them in the United Kingdom, outside of Northern Ireland.

Due to the scale of the riots, police reinforcements were called in from forces across England. The riots began from long-standing tensions between the local police and the black community.

Toxteth followed the Brixton Riots earlier in the year. A second wave of rioting began in late July and resulted in the death of one protester named David Moore.

1982

In Marin County, California, 17-year-old Crossan David Hoover Jr. robbed a vintage-auto restoration shop called The Classic Car, and murdered its owner, 36-year-old Richard A. Baldwin.

Hoover had beaten and stabbed Baldwin to death with a screwdriver, before dumping his body in San Pablo Bay with the help of an accomplice, Mark Richards.

Baldwin’s body was found seven days later on July 13^th by a tugboat operator. It was wrapped in a plastic tarpaulin and a bamboo screen, weighed down with an outboard motor.

Three days later, Hoover and Richards were arrested, after investigators learned they had planned the murder for many months prior.

Richards was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and Hoover was sentenced to 26 years to life.

1983

In Talladega County, Alabama, The Franklin family, Paul and Judy Franklin and their 10-year-old son Paul Jr., were brutally murdered by John W. Peoples during a robbery.

Paul Sr. was murdered first in his own home, after refusing to sell a vintage 1968 Corvette to Peoples and his cousin, Timothy Gooden.

His body was dumped in nearby woods, where his wife and son were also taken and murdered beside the body.

An investigation learned that the boy and his mother were beaten to death with a rifle, but the father’s body was too decomposed to determine the cause of death.

Judy had written Peoples name on a napkin before they were abducted. The napkin led to Peoples and Gooden’s arrest five days later. Both confessed to the murders and led police to the location of the bodies.

Gooden was sentenced to life in prison for murder. Peoples was sentenced to death and ultimately executed by lethal injection in Alabama on September 22^nd, 2005.

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