True Crime On This Day March 25th

Last Updated on September 22, 2022 by Ben Oakley

March 25th

On March 25th in true crime, triple murder in Virginia, cold case in Florida, solved murder, robbery, cop killer, and mystery disappearance.

1978

In Henrico County, Virginia, Charles Stamper murdered three of his colleagues at a restaurant during an early morning robbery.

The victims, Agnes Hicks, Franklin Cooley and Stephen Staples were forced into a walk-in-freezer and then shot dead. Their bodies were discovered a few hours later by another employee.

Stamper was arrested shortly after and sentenced to death. He was attacked by another prisoner and was left paralysed but was later executed by electric chair in January 1993.

1979

Near Reno, Nevada, the body of 21-year-old Julia Woodward was discovered in a remote area. She had been gagged, tied up, abused and beaten to death with a rock.

Woodward had last been seen by a friend on February 1^st 1979 when she had been dropped off at San Francisco International Airport. She had been travelling to Nevada to look for work.

The case went cold until November 2019 when advances in DNA technology led to the arrest of 73-year-old Charles Gary Sullivan.

1980

In Miami Lakes, Florida, 16-year-old Jean Marie Stewart disappeared while waiting outside a 7-11 convenience store at Cypress Village.

It was the night before she was due to catch a flight to Pittsburgh for a family wedding. Her friends had arranged a going away party for her and one of her friends was taking her there when he stopped off at the convenience store.

He went inside the shop to make a purchase and when he returned to the car, Stewart was nowhere to be seen. Her personal belongings, including the flight ticket, were still in the car.

In 1981, the remains of an unidentified female were discovered in the neighbouring city of Hialeah. The body was logged and became an unsolved case.

The body remained unidentified for 26 years until 2007 when new DNA technology confirmed that the body was that of Stewart. A murder investigation was opened and remains a cold case to this day.

1981

In Sri Lanka, the largest robbery in the history of the country took place. Tamil separatist leader Selvarajah Yogachandran, AKA: Kuttimani, planned the robbery of an armoured truck in order to fund the rebel movement.

The operation was jointly planned with the Tamil Tigers. They attacked the truck as it was taking cash from Neervely to Jaffna. The gunmen killed the guards and escaped with 7.9million (SLR) (Approximately $400,000 USD at the time).

A nationwide manhunt ensued and the attackers were caught eleven days later. Kuttimani was sentenced to death but was killed in the 1983 Welikada Prison Massacre, along with 52 other inmates.

1982

In San Joaquin County, California, 30-year-old Deputy Sheriff Michael Arthur Coleman was shot dead while serving a drug search warrant.

As he approached the front door of the residence, the suspect opened fire from inside the house and hit Coleman in the arm. The bullet passed through his arm and into his side, missing the bullet proof vest he was wearing.

Coleman was rushed to hospital where he died shortly after. A 31-year-old female suspect was arrested at the scene and subsequently sentenced to life in prison.

In a sad turn of events, Coleman’s father suffered a fatal heart attack on the way to the hospital to see his son. He died on a hospital bed next to his son in the ER.

1983

In Kosse, Texas, two-year-old Desiree Chaunessy Carroll was suspected to have been abducted near her family residence.

Her mother claimed that she dropped her children off at the lane leading to their rural home and then drove away in her pick-up truck. According to Desiree’s older sister, she walked down the lane while Desiree followed the truck as it drove away.

No trace of Desiree was ever seen again. An extensive search of the nearby woodland uncovered no sign of her. It has long been suspected that she was abducted but any investigation has struggled to find any leads. Some databases list her disappearance as March 23^rd.

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