True Crime On This Day October 13th

October 13th

On October 13th, in true crime, serial killers, ritual murder, killer caught red-handed, unidentified victims, cold cases.

1978

In Concord, California, just six days after another attack, the East Area Rapist struck again. He broke into a home, gagged the woman’s husband and eight-year-old child and then raped her for hours.

The crimes went unsolved for four decades until the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, one of America’s most prolific serial killers.

1979

In Fall River, Massachusetts, the mutilated body of Donna Levesque was discovered in a remote area. She had been slayed in an occult ritual by Satanist Carl Drew in front of two other women he was seeking to control.

He was a pimp in the area who organised prostitutes into his coven and was known to sacrifice young women who went against him or displeased him. He killed three people from 1979 to 1980.

After Levesque, he murdered 22-year-old Barbara Raposa and 20-year-old Karen Marsden. Marsden was sacrificed at a cult gathering where she was tortured to death.

Witnesses claimed that Drew cut off her head and used it as a football before raping the headless corpse. Drew was convicted of Marsden’s murder and in 1981 was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

1980

In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, two police officers on patrol heard gunfire coming from a nearby wooded area and pulled over to investigate. They heard movement in the bushes that led to the trees and ordered the person to come out.

24-year-old Keith Zettlemoyer emerged from the woods with a gun and flashlight in hand. After securing Zettlemoyer, one of the officers went into the woods and found the body of 29-year-old Charles DeVetscom, who Zettlemoyer had shot dead.

DeVetscom was a co-worker of Zettlemoyer’s who was going to testify against him in an upcoming robbery trial. Zettlemoyer was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

He was executed by lethal injection on May 2^nd 1995 in Pennsylvania. He was the first person to be executed in the State of Pennsylvania since the United States had reintroduced the death penalty in 1976.

1981

In Detroit, Michigan, the decomposing body of an unidentified black male murder victim between the ages of 50 to 70, was discovered in a vacant garage. He had been found by local workers, in amongst some rubbish at the location.

An autopsy showed that the man had been shot twice, once in the left jaw and the other in the right thigh. The circumstances of his death and the identity of the man remain unsolved to this day.

1982

In Bedford, Indiana, James Walter Moreland was arrested for the murders of two men on October 9^th. The bodies of Clinton Abbott and John Cravey were discovered in Cravey’s trailer home in Eustace, Texas, they had been stabbed in the back numerous times.

Cravey’s body was on the floor by a blood-stained couch in the front room. Abbott’s body was in the back bedroom on the floor next to a bed. Two bloody knives were found on top of a dresser.

The trailer showed no signs of a struggle. Police arrested Moreland when they found remnants of Cravey’s boots in his trash can.

Moreland confessed immediately and claimed he was hitchhiking when he had been picked up Cravey and Abbott before going back to Cravey’s trailer. He claimed the two men began touching him in a sexual manner and he attacked them out of self-defence.

However, the wounds were consistent with someone who was sleeping on their stomach and being stabbed from behind. Family of Cravey later confirmed that he had no homosexual tendencies.

Moreland was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal injection in Texas on January 27^th 2000.

1983

In Missouri, serial killer Charles Ray Hatcher was sentenced to life in prison for the May 1978 rape and murder of four-year-old Eric Christgen.

A year later, Hatcher was sentenced to another 50 years for the murder of 11-year-old Michelle Steele in July 1982. Before the rest of his crimes could be brought to trial in separate cases, Hatcher hung himself in his cell.

Before his arrest in 1982, he had killed 16 people and was responsible for numerous more crimes in and around Missouri.

It has been suggested that Chucky from the Child’s Play films was based on Charles Ray Hatcher and his murders. The name of the killer doll in the film is Charles Lee ‘Chucky’ Ray and the doll would attempt to kill children. Hatcher would sometimes wear a horizontally striped top, just like the character from the films.