True Crime On This Day June 3rd

Last Updated on September 24, 2022 by Ben Oakley

June 3rd

On June 3rd in true crime, Statue of Liberty bombing, Long Beach John Doe, double murder, robbery, assassination, and school shooting.

1978

The Long Beach John Doe case has never been solved. A white man between 15 to 23-years-old was found less than a day after his death. He had been strangled and left in the open in a car park.

Due to a stamp on his hand, it was suspected he had been to a festival or party the night before. It is suggested that he may have been a victim of American serial killer Randy Kraft.

1979

In the early hours of the morning, in Gastonia, North Carolina, Larry Darnell Williams and accomplices robbed a service station.

They had been drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana all night and decided to rob the store. Using a sawn-off shotgun, Williams shot the night shift worker, Eric Joines, who later died of his injuries.

Shortly after, the group robbed a ‘7-11’ store in a different town. Not content with the robbery, Williams returned to the group’s car, grabbed the shotgun and shot dead Susan Verle Pierce, who was working in the store at the time.

Williams was sentenced to death in 1980. In 2006, the death sentence was commuted to life.

1980

In New York, in the early evening, a bomb exploded in the museum story room on the second floor of the building at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

FBI Agent Thomas Locke said that a check of the bomb fragments gave no clues as to who had planted the bomb.

Shortly after, the investigation received several phone calls by people claiming responsibility for the bomb, including the Jewish Defence League and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. It was later confirmed to be Yugoslavian-born Croatian freedom fighters.

They had planned a public bombing to become infamous on television but they were never arrested for the crime. The bombing caused an estimated $18,000 (USD) in damage and destroyed several exhibits inside the room.

1981

In Panama City, Florida, Western Union clerk, Janis Franklin, was abducted from her office during a robbery. Her body was found two days later approximately eight miles from the site of the abduction.

She had been murdered by James Armando Card, who had cut her throat and severed her fingers. Card had robbed the office to repay $50 (USD) to a friend.

He was arrested five days after the robbery and subsequently convicted of murder. He was sentenced to death and despite numerous appeals, remains on death row 40 years later.

1982

In Park Lane, London, Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov, survived an assassination attempt as he left the Dorchester Hotel.

Hussein Ghassan Said, Marwan al-Banna, and Nawaf al-Rosan, armed with machine pistols, attacked the ambassador and his team.

Argov was shot in the head and rushed to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. He was in a coma for three months before being transferred to the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, where he remained paralysed and a permanent patient until his death in 2003.

His attempted assassination led to the 1982 Lebanon War. The three attackers were captured and sentenced to between 30 to 35 years.

On the same day

In Hong Kong, Lee Chi Hang entered the Anne-Anne Kindergarten school and stabbed 34 children. After killing his mother and sister, and also wounding two other women, 28-year-old Hang went to the school and carried out the attack.

Four of the children he stabbed died of their wounds. He was later found to be criminally insane and committed to a high security psychiatric institution.

1983

In Eppstein, West Germany, the Eppstein school shooting took place leaving six people dead and wounding another 14. The attack took place at the Freiherr-vom-Stein comprehensive school.

34-year-old Czech refugee Karel Charva stormed the school with an array of weapons and killed three students, one teacher, and a police officer, before turning the gun on himself.

An autopsy of Charva’s body showed that he was under the influence of alcohol at the time. His motive remains unknown. The shooting remains one of the deadliest in post-war Germany.

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