True Crime On This Day October 11th

October 11th

On October 11th, in true crime, a motel mystery, murder in Kentucky, serial killers, and cold-blooded murder.

1978

In New York, Buddy Earl Justus was arrested for the murder of three women in three separate States during October 1978. On October 3^rd, Justus had raped and shot dead 21-year-old Ida Mae Moses who was nearly nine months pregnant at the time.

A few days later he killed 32-year-old Rosemary Jackson and 21-year-old Stephanie Hawkins. Justus was sentenced to death and executed in the electric chair in December 1990.

1979

In Miami, Florida, 45-year-old Richard ‘Dick’ Florian Ruest disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Ruest was staying at the Sky Way Hotel in the city when he vanished. The hotel managers claimed that Ruest never checked out and never returned for his belongings.

The cleaning services stored his belongings and cleaned the room for the next guest. Ruest had vanished without a trace. No one remembers seeing him in the city after his disappearance and no trace of him has ever been found since.

1980

In Verona, Kentucky, on October 11th, 25-year-old Helen Marlene Oakes was shot dead by her estranged husband William Major. Oakes had been having an affair with a man who lived on their property and her husband had found out about it.

She also wrote in her diary that her husband had been abusing one of their two children and had made plans to elope.

Her partial skeletal remains were discovered on November 29^th 1981 but remained unidentified until 2001 when DNA testing confirmed it was Oakes. Her husband was arrested in the same year and later sentenced to life in prison.

1981

In Fort Smith, Arkansas, in the middle of the evening, Marion Albert Pruett, AKA: Mad Dog Killer, arrived in the city and began scouting for the perfect place to commit another robbery.

When he couldn’t find a bank store, he parked up, injected himself with cocaine and drank whisky until the middle of the night. He then drove to an all-night Convenience Corner grocery mart and held up the cashier, Bobbie Jean Robertson, at gunpoint.

He made off with cash and ordered Robertson into his car, before driving her to the remote location he had been parked at. He then shot Robertson in the head at point blank range. Pruett killed five people in 1981 alone and is suspected of many others, this was in addition to multiple robberies and assaults.

He was arrested shortly after and convicted of Robertson’s murder. Pruett was sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection in Arkansas on April 13^th 1999.

1982

In Dallas, Texas, in the early hours of the morning, Helen Gay Pemberton was shot dead outside of her apartment. Her young daughter, Tricia, was asleep inside the apartment at the time. Police arrested Helen’s estranged husband, Jimmy Dale Pemberton, the same morning.

After three days of interrogation, he confessed to shooting Helen, because he was afraid she would take his daughter away. Jimmy was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Their daughter grew up without her parents.

1983

In Seattle, Washington, 25-year-old prostitute Mary Sue Bello disappeared in the Magnolia area of the city. Her remains were found one year later in a field by a mushroom hunter on October 12^th 1984.

Bello was murdered by Gary Ridgway, AKA: The Green River Killer. Ridgway buried some of his victims in what he called ‘clusters’, mostly in wooded areas. He would return to the bodies to engage in acts of necrophilia with the corpses.