True Crime On This Day June 11th

June 11th

On June 11th in true crime, serial killer couple, macabre discovery in San Diego, cold case murder, unsolved crimes, and Henry Lee Lucas.

1978

The body of 23-year-old Roland Young was found beside a San Diego freeway. He was a victim of serial killer Randy Kraft. Young’s testicles and penis had been removed before he was stabbed to death and his body thrown from a moving vehicle.

Kraft murdered a confirmed 16 young men between 1972 and 1983. Investigators have since linked him to a total of 67 rapes and murders. As of 2020, he is on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

1979

In the early hours of the morning in Paulsboro, New Jersey, the body of 23-year-old Minerva Hill was discovered in an area known as lover’s lane.

She had been killed with a blunt force trauma to the head and wrapped in a sheet. It is suspected that she was killed elsewhere and then moved to the remote site.

There was no known motive for the murder and despite numerous appeals for witnesses, the murder remains unsolved.

1980

In Huntington Beach, California, half-sisters 15-year-old Gina Narano and 16-year-old Cynthia Chandler were abducted. Their bodies were found the next morning beside Ventura Freeway.

They had been lured to their deaths by serial killing couple Carol M. Bundy and her lover Doug Clark. They took the girls to their garage where they abused and tortured them.

Bundy then masturbated Clark as he shot each girl in the head. He then proceeded to have sex with their corpses.

Clark would bring prostitutes back to their apartment for both of them to use but quickly turned his attention to young girls, who Bundy helped lure into their van and home.

They were both arrested in August of 1980. Bundy confessed to everything and gave a full confession of hers and Clark’s crimes. Bundy was sentenced to life in prison but died of heart failure in 2003.

Clark was sentenced to death, despite pleading innocent to the murders. Between them, they had killed at least six people.

1981

In Miami-Dade County, Florida, the body of 29-year-old Amparo Arias Torres, was discovered in her apartment, after neighbours complained of a foul smell.

Torres led a private life and was not well known to others nearby. Despite this, different men were seen visiting her apartment at all times of the day and night. Investigators discovered her apartment was clean, tidy, and well-kept, and there were no signs of robbery.

They noted there were two empty coffee mugs in the apartment. Torres had been shot several times in the head. No suspect has ever been found and her murder remains unsolved.

1982

In Crockett County, Texas, 31-year-old Brenda Kay Broadway and her daughters, eight-year-old Christy Elms and 14-year-old Salina Elms, were kidnapped.

They were abducted from a car wash and forced into a pickup truck driven by Michael Eugene Sharp. He drove to a remote location where he raped Brenda and Salina.

He then stabbed Brenda and Christy to death while Salina managed to escape. Just before dawn the following morning, she had managed to reach the safety of a nearby drilling rig, still tied and nude, having fought off coyotes throughout the night.

Her testimony led to Sharp’s arrest, and he was subsequently sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal injection in Texas on November 19^th 1997.

1983

American Serial killer Henry Lee Lucas was captured and subsequently convicted of 11 murders. During the pre-trial investigation, hundreds of unsolved murders were attributed to Lucas in what was described as a clearing up of old cases.

Back in 1951, Lucas claimed his first victim, 17-year-old Laura Burnsley, who he strangled to death after she refused his sexual advances.

There have been many books and documentaries on Lucas, mostly because of the absurdity of the investigation and the clearing up of cases that surrounded him.

He claimed he killed over 100 people but when cases from various states were being attributed to him, 100 became 3,000.

It is suggested that his real victim count comes to around 40. He died in 2001 of a heart attack, leaving his true dark legacy a mystery and a talking point that is still being discussed today.

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