True Crime On This Day June 26th

Last Updated on September 26, 2022 by Ben Oakley

June 26th

On June 26th in true crime, bomb attack, missing nun, assassination in Belfast, double murder in Florida, unsolved crimes, and cold cases.

1978

Near Paris, a Terrorist bombing by Breton Nationalists caused destruction in the Palace of Versailles. The explosion on the ground floor in the early hours damaged or destroyed statues and paintings.

It levelled an entire gallery along with several pieces of Napoleonic art. The Palace of Versailles later became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

1979

In Schenectady County, New York, 37-year-old former Franciscan nun Agnes C. Shoe vanished without a trace. Shoe was reported missing by her husband after he returned home to find that she had not left any food or water for her dog.

She was the second nun to have vanished in 1979, following the disappearance of Christina Nuala Bracken in Swansea, Wales.

As of 2022, no trace of Shoe has ever been found and she remains a missing persons case. Investigators have long worked on the suspicion that she had been met with foul play.

1980

In Andersonstown, Belfast, 52-year-old Irish republican activist and university lecturer Miriam Daly was shot dead by the loyalist Ulster Defence Association (UDA).

Members of the UDA had broken into her home with the intention of killing her husband but found Daly instead. Her husband was away in Dublin and was not due to return for another few days.

The UDA decided to kill Daly instead. They shot her in the head using a cushion as a muffler, then left the body on the floor.

She was discovered by her 10-year-old daughter upon her return from school. Her killers were never caught.

1981

In Volusia County, Florida, Roy Allen Harich lured 18-year-old Carlene Gayle Kelly and her friend, 17-year-old Deborah Miller, into his car.

He then drove them to a secluded wooded area to smoke some marijuana together. He ended up attacking and raping them both.

In the early hours of the morning on the 27^th, he shot both teenagers in the back of their head and cut their throats.

Kelly died instantly from the injuries, but Miller survived the attack and later went on to testify against Harich. Harich was arrested shortly after and subsequently sentenced to death. He was executed in the electric chair on April 24^th 1991.

1982

In Alabama, murderer James Harvey Callahan who abducted, raped, and strangled to death Becky Howell in February, was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death.

Two weeks after Howell’s murder, her decomposing body was found in a local creek. Callahan was arrested on February 22^nd after a witness statement placed him near the site of Howell’s disappearance, the night she was abducted.

Callahan was executed by lethal injection in Alabama on January 15^th 2009.

1983

In Los Angeles County, California, the burned body of an unidentified female between the ages of 16 to 26, was discovered in a burned down abandoned mobile home.

An autopsy showed she had been beaten and strangled to death less than two hours before the mobile home burned down. She had also been raped and assaulted with a hose, which was found inside her vagina.

Shortly after, a suspect named Melvin Smith was arrested and subsequently sentenced to 25 years for the woman’s murder.

He claimed to have picked her up while she was hitchhiking in Crescenta Valley and beat her to death until she was no longer breathing. Her identity has never been solved and remains a mystery to this day.

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