True Crime On This Day October 26th

October 26th

On October 26th, in true crime, mass shooting, murder, assassination, serial killers, cold cases, and a macabre discovery in Florida.

1978

In England, Barry Kenneth Williams shot eight people and killed five in a spree killing in West Bromwich and Nuneaton. The spree took place over an hour. He was convicted only of manslaughter in 1979 on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

He was released in 1994, changed his name, got married and moved to Wales. After an argument with his neighbour involving more firearms, he was sectioned to a secure psychiatric hospital where he died in December of 2014.

1979

In Seoul, the third President of South Korea, Park Chung-hee was assassinated at a dinner with the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA). The meeting was at a safe-house inside the presidential compound, when the director of the KCIA, Kim Jae-gyu, carried out the attack.

Four bodyguards and a chauffeur were killed in the shoot-out. It has always remained unclear if the attack had been pre-meditated or was carried out impulsively.

1980

In the Latvian SSR, a 17-year-old girl was dragged into a nearby forest where she was beaten with a knife handle. She had been attacked by serial killer Stanislav Ivanovich Rogolev, AKA: Agent 000, who tried to rape her but failed.

The girl managed to escape and run home before Rogolev could catch her again. Rogolev killed 10 women and attacked a further 11 between 1980 and 1982. He was caught in 1982 and sentenced to death. In 1984, he was executed by firing squad.

1981

In Greencastle, Indiana, 24-year-old Martha Payne was raped and stabbed to death in her own home. Her husband, James D. Payne returned home later in the evening to find her body on the bedroom floor.

Some of the couple’s personal items had been robbed, including a jug of coins. Shorty after, William A. Minnick was arrested and charged with the attack. He claimed he had been there but someone named Ace had raped and killed Payne.

Minnick was sentenced to death on June 10^th 1982. But on December 1^st 2004, the sentenced was overturned due to an appeal that declared Minnick legally incompetent.

He was committed to a psychiatric facility where he remains to this day. It was suspected that Ace was a name he gave himself.

1982

In St. Paul, Minnesota, 23-year-old Deana Marie Patnode disappeared under suspicious circumstances. She was last seen alive leaving the Buck Board Bar on Concord Boulevard with a friend.

On May 20^th 1989, skeletal remains belonging to an unidentified female were discovered near Kellogg in Wabasha County. Twenty years later, in March 2009, the remains were identified as Deana’s, using advances in DNA technology.

Investigators had received a tip from an image on a card in a deck of Minnesota Cold Case Playing Cards that were released in October 2008. When she was identified, a homicide investigation was opened. No suspect has ever been found and the case remains unsolved.

1983

In Seattle, Washington, 16-year-old Pammy Annette Avent disappeared after leaving her mother’s home to meet friends. Avent was known to have been involved in prostitution and was picked up and subsequently murdered by Gary Ridgway, AKA: The Green River Killer.

He led investigators to her skeletal remains near Highway 410 in August 2003. Ridgway was arrested in 2001, convicted of 48 murders, and sentenced to life in 2003. He has since confessed to a total of 71 murders.

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