True Crime On This Day September 13th

Last Updated on September 16, 2022 by Ben Oakley

September 13th

On September 13th, in true crime, there were multiple active serial killers, an assassination, serial rapist, and murder.

1978

Rodney Alcala, AKA: The Dating Game Killer, appeared on the national television show; The Dating Game. It marked a surreal and defining moment of true crime in 1978. His total number of victims is unknown but it is suggested to be close to 100.

He would generally pose as a fashion photographer to get close to his victims and win their confidence. He would strangle them until they lost consciousness whereupon he would bring them back around. He would repeat the process many times before ultimately killing them.

Alcala has been compared to Ted Bundy numerous times, not least because of his charming appearance on The Dating Game TV show. He had a collection of over 1,000 photographs of women and young boys, many in sexually explicit poses.

It is speculated that some of them could have been other victims as many were not or have not yet been identified.

1980

In Rome, Italy, organised crime boss Franco ‘El Fornaretto’ Giuseppucci was assassinated by a gunman on a motorcycle. Giuseppucci was one of the founders of the Banda della Magliana, an Italian criminal organization based in the city of Rome that was founded in 1975.

The Banda had carried out numerous crimes including the kidnapping of Italian duke, Massimiliano Grazioli Lante della Rovere, in 1977.

Due to inexperience and the assistance of another gang, the duke was murdered. Giuseppucci was also known for having made friends in high places, such as those involved in cinema, music, and politics.

Under his leadership, the Banda rose to be a large criminal organisation and he became known as the Eighth King of Rome. His death sparked Rome’s first major gang war.

1981

In Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, 81-year-old Marcelianne Richard was raped and strangled to death by serial rapist Willie Lawrence Celestine.

Prior to Richard’s murder, he had broken into the homes of two other elderly women in the same neighbourhood and raped them before robbing them of their belongings. He was arrested for the Richard murder on the same day and charged with her death.

He was sentenced to life in prison for the previous rapes and then sentenced to death for the murder of Richards. He was executed in the electric chair in Louisiana on July 20^th 1987.

1982

In Montreal, Canada, on September 13th, the body of club dancer Michelle Angiers was discovered in a tavern parking lot. She had been stabbed 30 times by American serial killer William Dean Christenson.

He was known to have killed at least four people but has since been linked to a possible 30. He would rape and then partially dismember some of his victims.

Some investigators dubbed him the real American Jack the Ripper. He was arrested in the Summer of 1984 and subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

1983

In Los Angeles, California, 72-year-old Mary Pauquette was raped, strangled, and stabbed to death in her own apartment, before the apartment was set alight. She had been murdered by serial killer Brandon Tholmer, AKA: The West Side Rapist, notorious in true crime history.

He was a Louisiana-born serial killer and rapist who murdered at least 12 elderly women between 1981 and 1983 in Los Angeles’ West Side. He was arrested at his apartment where more than 200 pieces of jewellery, watches, photographs, and other small items were discovered.

In 1986, he was found guilty of 12 murders and sentenced to life in prison for four of them, including Pauquette’s. Later investigators have confidently linked another 22 murders to him as some of the items found in his apartment were linked to other victims, bringing the total to 34.

He has never been charged with the additional 22 but remains in prison to this day.