True Crime On This Day November 24th

November 24th

On November 24th in true crime, serial killers, Australian murder, drunk driver, and a murder in Billings, Montana.

1978

In Derry, Northern Ireland, IRA member Patrick Duffy is murdered by two members of a secretive branch of the British Army.

The killing is recognised as being the first time the British Army had ordered a shoot-to-kill operation in the region.

Duffy was shot 11 times after entering his home and was unarmed when he was attacked. The murder has left a legacy in the country that persists even 40 years after his death.

Family members continue to lobby the government for an inquiry that would see the details of the case released to the public.

1979

In Santa Ana, California, 15-year-old Jeffrey Sayre was abducted and murdered by Randy Steven Kraft, AKA: The Scorecard Killer.

Kraft murdered at least 16 young males, mostly in California, and is suspected of another 51 more rapes and murders.

He was convicted of multiple murders after his arrest in 1983 and sentenced to death.

1980

In New South Wales, Australia, police responded to reports of gunshots in bushland at Mount Sugarloaf. Police Sergeant Keith Haydon discovered Berwyn Rees with six handguns, shooting at cans in the distance.

When Haydon confronted Rees, he was shot three times in the chest before being shot in the head. More police officers caught up with Rees twenty kilometres away and a shoot-out ensued until Rees was overpowered.

An investigation discovered that Rees had executed two men in 1977 but the case had gone cold. He was convicted of three murders and given three life sentences and 10 years.

In August 2019, after 39 years behind bars, Rees was released.

1981

In California, angel of death serial killer Robert Rubane Diaz was arrested and charged with 12 counts of murder.

Over a 12-day period from March to April 1981, he had deliberately poisoned and killed 12 patients. Witnesses claimed they had seen him giving some patients injections just before they had died. He also went as far as deleting medical records and changing patient files.

Diaz had always wanted to be a doctor but had to settle on a career as a nurse although he felt it was beneath him.

He even told friends to call him Dr. Diaz, at the same time as he was giving overdoses of the drug Lidocaine to his patients.

He also held the strange belief that he was an Egyptian mystic and a reincarnated member of royalty. The deaths occurred at two hospitals at the same time that Diaz was on duty.

An anonymous phone call to police led to his arrest. In 1984, Diaz was sentenced to death. He died on August 9^th 2010, while awaiting execution.

1982

In Amarillo, Texas, 49-year-old Patrolman Delbert Wayne Miller, Sr. was hit and killed by a drunk driver. Miller was directing traffic around an accident on Interstate-40 when the drunk driver lost control of his commercial truck, crashed through a guardrail, and hit Miller at high speed.

Miller died instantly and the drunk driver surrendered at the scene. The driver was only sentenced to one year in prison and fined $2,000 (USD) for criminal negligent homicide. Miller left behind his wife and two sons.

1983

In Billings, Montana, 23-year-old sex worker Marie Philbrick was last seen alive by her roommates, in the early hours of the morning, walking into town.

A witness saw her climb into a yellow pickup truck. Her body was found in an alley beside two garbage cans on December 1^st, with 18 stab wounds to her chest, and her throat had been cut. An autopsy showed she had been killed on or around November 24^th.

Drag marks in the snow around the body, suggested she had been killed elsewhere and dumped at the scene. A local business called Pease Stove Store backed onto the alley, owned by Bernard Pease.

Police searched the property and found used condoms in the storage room, they also learned that Pease drove a yellow pick-up truck.

Despite circumstantial evidence, based on a single hair strand, Pease was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Over the years, new evidence regarding false witness testimonies and a botched investigation have come to light, including that Philbrick was seen with her pimp after the 24^th.

The Montana Innocence Project took on Bernard’s case in 2009, and again in 2015. In 2019, they submitted the condom for DNA testing but the results were inconclusive.

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