True Crime On This Day September 15th

Last Updated on February 17, 2023 by Ben Oakley

September 15th

On this day, throughout true crime history, there are missing persons, murders, serial killers, and mystery bodies. Those born on September 15th are Virgos.

1978

In Marlow, New Hampshire, 26-year-old Russell Bean vanished and was listed as missing for 10 years. In 1988 on his deathbed, Clifton Chambers implicated his son, Robert Chambers, in the murder of Russell Bean and was able to identify the location of the body.

In March 1988, police searched the Chambers property and discovered the remains of Bean who had been killed with a blunt trauma to the head.

Robert Chambers was a part-time Marlow police chief when the body was found and he was arrested for the murder. Due to a lack of evidence, Chambers was never charged with the murder and the investigation moved from a missing persons case to a homicide.

1979

In Broward County, Florida, two twin sisters, 17-year-olds Peggy & Patty Leslie McDaniel vanished without a trace. They were last seen in a Fort Lauderdale nightclub called ‘The Plank’ but no one knew what happened to them after that.

Four days later, one of their friends was found dead in the back of a car but there seemed to be no link to the twins. The twin’s disappearance remains a mystery and is an active cold case in the State of Florida. Twin disappearances or murders are extremely rare.

1980

In Kansas City, Missouri, American football player James Efflo Tyrer shot dead his wife before turning the gun on himself. Tyrer had played professionally for 14 years and had played for the Kansas City Chiefs.

He then became a salesman and had invested in a tire business but both had proved to be financial disasters. A series of misfortunes led to him killing his wife and himself. He left behind four children, one of whom discovered the bodies.

1981

In Coral Springs, Florida, 33-year-old Elisabeth Jean Wagner disappeared after last being seen leaving her apartment. She drove away in her Cadillac Eldorado and headed North out of Florida, never to be seen again.

She was reported missing by her family shortly after. In the case file, her medical records show she had been hit in the head with a hammer causing severe trauma, at some point prior to her disappearance. It remains uncertain whether this had been caused by her partner or from a random attack.

Despite a connection to the previous incident, no trace of Wagner has ever been found and her disappearance remains unsolved.

1982

In Rostov Oblast, Soviet Union, 15-year-old Sergey Kuzmin was brutally murdered by Russian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, AKA: The Red Ripper.

His decomposing body was found on January 12^th 1983 in a remote forest between two local train stations. Kuzmin had run away from the orphanage where he resided and was lured to his death by Chikatilo, who stalked local train stations looking for easy prey.

Chikatilo was captured in 1990 and found guilty of 52 murders. He was sentenced to death and executed on February 16th 1994.

1983

In Wharton County, Texas, the decomposing body of an unidentified white male in his Twenties was discovered in a cornfield.

Nearby oil rig workers found the remains approximately 400 feet away from the Highway 59 bypass in Wharton County. Due to the decomposition, the man has never been identified.

Investigators suspect he may have been the victim of a homicide but the cause of death remains a mystery.

2004

In Stockport, England, 73-year-old Marie Harding was stabbed in the back and her throat cut in a gruesome and grizzly murder. Her killer was David Gonzalez, who would go on to kill three more people before killing himself in 2007.