True Crime On This Day November 2nd

November 2nd

On November 2nd in true crime, a bar fight murder, serial killer in New York City, cold case, and a shoot-out in Paris.

1978

In Seattle, Washington, 24-year-old Barbara Annette McClure vanished without a trace. She had last been seen spending the evening at the Fandango Disco with her boyfriend and friends.

She left to walk home alone after she had a public argument with her boyfriend. She was reported missing the next day when her roommate realised she had failed to return home.

An investigation turned up her driver’s license, ten miles away from her house leading to the suspicion that she had been abducted.

1979

In Paris, French gangster Jacques Mesrine was shot dead by police. Mesrine was responsible for numerous murders, bank robberies, and kidnappings in multiple countries including France, the United States and Canada.

He had escaped prison so many times that he had been given the nickname of ‘The Man of a Thousand Faces’.

1980

In Denver, Colorado, a bar fight at the New Beginning Bar on the corner of West Dakota Avenue, left 27-year-old Ronald Williams dead. A police patrol car was passing during the fight and pulled over to investigate.

Williams had been stabbed multiple times and was taken to hospital where he died of his injuries. The cause of the bar fight was never discovered.

The identity of the killer has remained a mystery ever since, but it is still an active cold case in the State of Colorado.

1981

In New York City, 36-year-old mother-of-four Tolila Brown was strangled to death with a scarf. Her partially nude body was found in a shack at 1445 Minford Place, the following day.

Her murder went unsolved for nearly 30 years when cold case investigators matched DNA under Brown’s fingernails to spree killer Jesus Aguilera.

In May 1981, Aguilera escaped from a Cuban prison and arrived in the United States on a Cuban boat. He immediately went on a murder and rape spree.

At the time, he was known to have killed two people, raped a 15-year-old girl and tried to hang her, then attacked numerous others. He was arrested shortly after and sentenced to life sentences for the murders of 30-year-old Guillermo Graniela and 24-year-old Josefina Cepeda.

He was never connected to Brown’s death at the time, but in 2010, he was charged with her murder, and after a lengthy trial, was convicted in 2015.

The third murder made him a serial killer by FBI definitions as he killed at least three people over a period of time. He was sentenced to an additional 15 years and is due for parole in 2027.

1982

In Lee County, Alabama, on November 2nd, the skeletal remains of an unidentified black female in her late twenties or early thirties were discovered in a rural field by walkers.

She was found with a white bra and red jacket. An autopsy of the remains confirmed she had been killed by a gunshot wound to the stomach approximately six months prior to the discovery. Her identity remains a mystery and the case is unsolved.

1983

In Jacksonville, Florida, the body of a white male in his Twenties was found underneath the flatbed railroad car of a derailed freight train.

He was discovered just two hours after the train accident and had a high blood-alcohol level. He was carrying a bag with some clothes and less than one dollar in change.

Despite the train accident coming under scrutiny from the media and public, the dead man was never identified. It remains unclear if the man was a passenger on the train or near the track when it happened. No one ever came forward to identify him.

Check out the Mega List of True Crime Podcasts