True Crime On This Day June 2nd

June 2nd

On June 2nd in true crime, serial killers, macabre discovery, police brutality, Strangler from Banska Bystrica, and mystery missing person.

1978

The mummified remains of a teenage white female were discovered by a farmer putting out fertiliser in a cornfield just off Interstate 95 in North Carolina.

The body had no signs of trauma or cause of death determined and the case remains unsolved as of 2022.

1980

In Downey, California, 18-year-old hitchhiker Steven Jay Wells was picked up by two men wanting to have sex with him.

Steven agreed to have sex, even allowing himself to be tied up on the promise of money afterwards.

Unbeknownst to Wells, he had been picked up by serial killer William George Bonin and his accomplice James Munro. They ended up raping and beating Wells before strangling him with his own t-shirt.

They put his body in a cardboard box and drove to Vernon Butts house, who was another accomplice to some of Bonin’s murders.

Butts told them to dump the body, so they left the body in the box at the rear of a gas station. Wells’ body was discovered the next day.

Bonin killed at least 21 people from 1979 to 1980 and was sentenced to death. He was executed in February 1996. Munro was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced from 15 years to life in prison.

1981

In Signal Hill, Los Angeles, State University American football player Ron Settles was found dead in his cell after being arrested for speeding the night before.

Settles was found hanging in his cell, but a coroner report showed that he had been beaten to death. Officers in the station had not taken photographic evidence of the body hanging and refused to testify at later inquiries.

A jury in a coroner’s inquest in 1981, ruled that the Settles death was not a suicide. The City of Signal Hill paid out a $1million (USD) settlement to Settles’ family but no charges were ever made against the officers.

Settles’ death was one of many highly controversial deaths of black arrestees in the late 1970s and 1980s. The deaths led to security cameras in jail areas and the creation of reports every time a prisoner needed to be restrained.

1982

In Banska Bystrica, Slovakia, 15-year-old Lýdia Rydlová was going home from school when she was dragged into a secluded area, raped, and strangled by Czechoslovakian serial killer Juraj Luptak, AKA: TheStrangler from Banska Bystrica.

He then buried her alive in a shallow grave where she died of her injuries. Her decomposed corpse was discovered a month later. He was arrested in July 1982 after claiming his third victim and sentenced to death. Luptak was hung for his crimes in 1987.

1983

In Rijeka, Croatia, 23-year-old Vladimir ‘Kiki’ Vojnovic vanished without a trace. He was last seen leaving his home in Rijeka in the mid-afternoon but was never seen again.

Investigators found no clues to his disappearance until a letter arrived at his family home in 1991.

It was addressed as sent from an undisclosed location in Paris. In the letter, he tells his family he is safe and well, but investigators have long suspected foul play, as his family believed the letter was not in the style of Vladimir’s voice or writing.

To this day, Vladimir’s disappearance remains a mystery.

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