True Crime On This Day June 4th

Last Updated on September 24, 2022 by Ben Oakley

June 4th

On June 4th in true crime, Secret Service agent murder, cold case in Kent, shoot-out, serial killing Hitler, and Chino Hills massacre.

1978

In Kent, England, 18-year-old bank clerk Michael Page was stabbed to death as he walked home. Page had attended a party with friends at Crofton Hall in the town before he left to go home alone.

His body was discovered lying face down in a pool of blood just a few hundred metres from his home. He had been stabbed six times with a large knife and had been robbed of his wallet.

As of 2022, the murder remains unsolved and is one of Kent’s most infamous unsolved crimes.

1979

In Cleveland, Ohio, police officer John Hubbell was shot and killed during a shoot-out while trying to catch a suspect.

Hubbell and his partner Thomas Smyczek had spotted a robbery suspect’s car and approached the vehicle on foot. The suspect, Anthony Lemay, was working on the car in the driveway and noticed the officers approaching.

He grabbed a gun and shot both officers. Despite Hubbell and Smyczek both having been seriously wounded, they managed to return fire and shoot Lemay.

Hubbell had been shot in the back and Smyczek had been shot in the stomach and thigh. All three were taken to hospital where Hubbell and Lemay died of their wounds. Smyczek survived and carried on his career as an officer.

1980

In California, a United States Secret Service agent was killed in an ambush while conducting surveillance in a counterfeiting operation.

A group of armed robbers, including Andre Alexander attacked 26-year-old agent Julie Cross and her partner, Lloyd Bulman. Cross managed to fire back but Alexander disarmed her and shot her in the head at point blank range with a shotgun.

Bulman was hit with shotgun pellets but ultimately survived the attack. 12 years later, Alexander was linked to the murder of Cross. The investigation found that he was already in jail for his part in the 1978 murders of a counterfeit money printer, his girlfriend, and another man.

He was serving three life sentences for the murders. In 1996, he was sentenced to death for the Cross murder and moved to death row.

1981

At the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary near Petros, Tennessee, convicted assassin James Earl Ray was stabbed 22 times by four of his fellow inmates.

Ray had been sentenced to 99 years in prison for the 1968 assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King. Ray survived the attack but refused to identify his attackers.

An external investigation later convicted three black prisoners of the stabbing and added a minimum of 20 years to their sentences.

1982

In Cleveland, Ohio, John Hardaway was shot seven times while waiting for an RTA train at the West 117th Rapid Station.

He noticed a man walking towards him suspiciously and when he turned his back to him, he was shot three times with a shotgun, despite seven shots ringing out.

Hardaway miraculously survived and would later identify his attacker as American serial killer Frank G. Spisak Jr., AKA: Frankie Ann ‘Hitler’ Spisak, who killed at least three people over the course of 1982.

He was a transvestite killer who claimed he wanted to become Adolf Hitler. Spisak was arrested in September 1982 and subsequently sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal injection in Ohio on February 17^th 2011.

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