True Crime On This Day May 11th

Last Updated on September 23, 2022 by Ben Oakley

May 11th

On May 11th in true crime, the Colombian conflict, murder of judge, conviction, murder in the Netherlands, unsolved cold cases.

1978

In Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, a jury convicted Dalton Prejean of capital murder and recommended the death penalty.

Prejean had murdered taxi driver John Doucet in 1974 when he was 14-years-old and was sent to youth detention but released to the custody of his aunt in 1976.

In 1977, at the age of 17-years-old, Prejean shot dead Louisiana state trooper Donald Cleveland and was arrested shortly after. He was sentenced to death and executed in the electric chair in Louisiana on May 18^th 1990.

1979

In the Netherlands, 12-year-old Tialda Visser vanished after failing to return home from ballet class at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. Four days later her body was found not too far from where she had gone missing.

She had been abducted and murdered by Jacobus Dirk ‘Koos’ Hertogs, who killed three young girls between 1979 and 1980. He was arrested in 1980 and sentenced to life in prison.

1980

In Santander, Colombia, during the Colombian Conflict, five people were killed in an attack carried out by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC).

In the rural areas surrounding the city of La Paz, they killed four civilians and one policeman. The operations of the FARC were funded by kidnappings, ransom, illegal mining, and extortion.

An estimated 12% of all deaths during the Colombian Conflict were attributed to FARC. The conflict is an ongoing battle between the Colombian Government and crime syndicates, including right-wing military groups.

An estimated 218,000 people have been killed and five million displaced during the struggles.

1981

In Broughton, Lancashire, England, Judge William Harrison Openshaw was murdered by John Smith, a petty criminal who Openshaw had sentenced to 18-months in a youth prison in 1968.

Still angry at the sentencing, Smith had put together a hit list of lawmen, royal family members, and high-ranking officials, but first on his list was Openshaw, the man who had convicted him.

Shortly after his nephew was sentenced to youth prison for burglary, Smith snapped and decided to start killing the people on his list. He hid in the garden of Openshaw’s home and then ambushed him on the driveway before stabbing him 12 times.

Smith was arrested a few days later in Scotland on a separate charge but a connection between him and the judge’s murder was made immediately. Smith was later sentenced to life in prison.

1982

In Florida, three-months pregnant Nancy Weiler and her two daughters, 10-year-old Kristina and five-year-old Katherine were murdered by Allen Lee Davis.

Nancy had been beaten to death so severely that she was unrecognisable. Kristina was shot twice in the face and Katherine was shot in the head before having her skull bashed in with the gun.

Davis was arrested shortly after and subsequently convicted of all three murders. He was sentenced to death and executed in the electric chair in Florida on July 8^th 1999.

1983

In Long Pond, Pennsylvania, 26-year-old Susan Maria Ann Cerritelli was reported missing by her husband, Andrew, who claimed that she had left their home just before noon, headed to Philadelphia.

When he returned home in the early evening, she was nowhere to be seen. Her family claimed that it was out of character for Susan not to make contact and suspected her husband of being involved in her disappearance.

Investigators discovered that Andrew was a controlling and jealous husband with a long criminal record but there was no evidence found to connect him to Susan’s disappearance.

In 1998, a prison inmate told police that Andrew said he had strangled Susan, dismembered her body, and dumped it in the ocean.

Andrew died of a drug overdose in 2007, taking any secrets to the grave. No trace of Susan has ever been found.

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