True Crime On This Day May 12th

May 12th

On May 12th in true crime, Wake Medical Center murder, serial killer Timothy McBride, child murderer, assassination, and revenge.

1978

In Illinois, Virginia Lee White was found dead at her home by her husband. She had been stabbed and strangled to death by American serial killer; Timothy Krajcir. Born Timothy Wayne McBride, he would be convicted of nine murders in 1982.

His father left the family when he was five-years-old and from that moment, Krajcir developed a sexual obsession with his own mother, constantly spying on her in the nude and becoming an active voyeur.

His victims were killed in towns and areas where he had no connection. He would stalk his victims and then break into their homes, awaiting their arrival back home.

Some victims were found in their beds while others were abducted and moved across state lines before being killed. Most had been sexually abused and raped. He would kill his victims by shooting, stabbing or strangling them.

1979

In Brevard County, Florida, Bryan Jennings was arrested for the rape and murder of six-year-old Rebecca Kunash, whose body was discovered in a canal just one day earlier.

Jennings had broken into her bedroom via the window and suffocated her before carrying her out. He then threw her on the ground outside with enough force to fracture her skull.

He then took her to the canal where he raped her before drowning her in the waters. In 1980, Jennings was sentenced to death. As of 2022, Jennings remains on death row despite numerous appeals.

1980

In Wake County, North Carolina, 25-year-old nurse Ann Marie Roche was abducted from the car park of the Wake Medical Center where she worked.

She was taken to a remote field where she was raped and murdered by John William Rook. He killed her by continuously running over her body with his car.

Witnesses to the abduction had noted down the license plate of the car and Rook was arrested three days later. He was sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection on September 19^th 1986.

1981

In Connecticut, serial killer Michael Bruce Ross killed his first of eight victims. 25-year-old Cornell University student, Dzung Ngoc Tu, was assaulted and strangled to death by Ross.

It would be almost a year before he killed again. He raped and strangled to death 16-year-old Paula Perrera in March 1982 and went on to kill another six before his capture on June 28^th 1984.

Ross was a Cornell University graduate who studied economics and stalked other students in and around the campus. He confessed to the murders of eight women but was convicted of four of them.

Despite pleading insanity for the rapes, kidnappings, and murders, he was sentenced to death. Ross was executed by lethal injection in Connecticut on May 13^th 2005.

1982

In Fátima, Portugal, Pope John Paul II was attacked with a bayonet by Fernández y Krohn, who approached the Pope from behind.

The assassination attempt happened when the Pope was on a pilgrimage to give thanks for his life being spared one year earlier at St. Peter’s Square in another assassination attempt.

Krohn was wrestled to the ground by security and arrested immediately. He was later convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to six and a half years in prison.

His motive was that he believed the Pope had been in league with the Soviet Union and was a secret Communist agent trying to infiltrate the Vatican.

1983

In Ohio, 24-year-old Cincinnati man, Gregory Earls, was shot dead by lifetime criminal William Zuern. Earls was known to have been an informant who testified against Zuern’s father in a previous case and was killed out of revenge.

Zuern was arrested shortly after and confined to await trial at the Community Correctional Institution, a Civil War era prison known as The Workhouse.

While awaiting trial, and going off a tip from another inmate, officers entered Zuern’s cell to find him naked and holding a shank made from a bucket handle.

As soon as the door opened, Zuern lunged forward and stabbed 26-year-old guard Phillip Pence, who was killed immediately. Zuern was sentenced to life for the murder of Earls, and death for the murder of Pence. He was executed by lethal injection on June 8^th, 2004.

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