FBI: Body resembles alleged 1976 family killer

The body of a John Doe who bears a "strong resemblance" to a former state department employee accused of the gruesome 1976 sledgehammer murders of his wife, mother and three sons, is being exhumed by the FBI.
Investigators believe the unidentified man who was killed by a hit and run driver in 1981 may well be William Bradford "Brad" Bishop Jr., a mainstay on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitive's list for years.
Read more at Cold Case USA

Second man named in Lyon Sisters disappearance

Cops have named a second person of interest in the 1975 disappearance of two young sisters who disappeared from a Maryland shopping center.
Investigators at Bedford County Sheriff's office said they were "very confident" they are close to finding out what happened to Sheila and Katherine Lyon, aged 12 and 10.
They also confirmed they were assisting Montgomery County Police with a homicide investigation.
Read more at Cold Case USA

'Cold Blooded' Paul Curry guilty of wife's 1994 murder

A "vicious, cold blooded" former nuclear engineer who was driven by an "insatiable appetite for money" was convicted of the 1994 murder of his wife.
Paul Curry gave a sleeping pill to his wife Linda and then poisoned her with a shot of nicotine because he wanted the $547.695 payout from her life insurance policy, prosecutors said.
Read more at Cold Case USA

NORMA ESPARZA 'GUILTY' IN '95 MEAT CLEAVER MURDER

A psychology professor has pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter in the cold case murder of her alleged rapist who was found hacked to death with a meat cleaver 20-years ago.
Norma Esparza told a California courtroom that she never meant for Gonzalo Ramirez to be killed in the Spring of 1995, but that her ex-boyfriend Gianni Anthony Van had forced her to point him out after she told him about the rape.
The following morning Orange County cops found the 24-year-old's body at the side of the road, beaten and hacked to death with a meat cleaver.
Read more at Cold Case USA

'I KILLED 30 GUYS' JOSE MARTINEZ CAUGHT BY CIG BUTT

"KILLER"

THE DNA from a cigarette butt found in a soda can has helped cops to solve a brutal seven-year-old murder and led the killer to confess to at least 30 other killings.
Detectives had drawn a blank on the brutal slayings of Javier Huerta, 20, and Gustavo Olivares-Rivas, 28, who were found bound with zip ties and shot multiple times inside a black Nissan Titan truck near Orlando.
But inside they found the can with the butt inside which they sent away for testing.
Astonishingly it led them to Jose Martinez, 50, who was already in custody for another homicide when the evidence came through.

50 YEARS LATER PRIEST EYED IN IRENE GARZA MURDER

In 1960, the lifeless body of former Miss South Texas was found face down, left to rot in a canal in McAllen, Texas. Now, more than 50 years later cops are pointing the finger at a former priest.
Irene Garza, 25, was a stunning local schoolteacher and an autopsy at the time revealed she had been raped while in a coma and was then suffocated.

JUDITH BELLO CALL BLOWS 1993 COLD CASE WIDE OPEN

FOUND?

SHE vanished in 1993, leaving her three-year-old son in day-care, her job and her home and sparking a huge manhunt from cops.
Investigators knew Judith Bello was having problems with her husband and viewed her disappearance as suspicious because she was close with her family and it seemed unlikely that she would leave her little boy.
With little to go one however, the case quickly went cold, until this week when a woman claiming to be Judith called sheriffs this week.
The woman told Snohomish County sheriff's detective Kelly Willoth that she had seen her profile on the sheriff's web site.
Since receiving the call, detectives worked to confirm the caller's identity and through several conversations with her family, along with other evidence, investigators now believe she is alive.

AUSTIN POWERS STAR CHARGED WITH 1990 RAPE

AUSTIN Powers star Joe Son has been charged with the brutal 1990 kidnap and rape of woman, apparently picked at random from the street.
The pint sized actor who played Random Task, based on the Odd Job character from the James Bond movies, allegedly snatched the woman with pal and repeatedly raped and tortured her at gunpoint.
But now after more than two decades he has finally been linked with the crime thanks to DNA technology.
Read more here. 

ROBERT BOWMAN ON TRIAL FOR 1967 SEX SLAYING

FOR DECADES, the sickening sex slaying of pretty Ohio schoolgirl Eileen Adams was unsolved. Now, the first-degree murder trial of her suspected killer got underway Monday in Toledo. Eileen, 14, was found dead six weeks later in a frozen field in 1967, her body hogtied and a nail pounded into the back of her head. Robert Bowman, 75, was arrested and is now on trial. His ex-wife Margaret testified to finding the girl. MORE FROM OUR NEW SISTER SITE, COLD CASE USA

PRETTY MARIA RIDUPLH ACCUSED, DENIES MURDER

PRETTY MARIA

PRETTY Maria Ridulph's accused killer is 'absolutely' going to deny murdering the seven-year-old girl back in 1957 his lawyer has revealed..
Former cop, Jack Daniel McCollough, now 71, was a neighbor of the youngster in Sycamore, IL allagedly kidnapped and killed the youngster, after offering a piggy back ride.
Read more here   

DNA HELPS CRACK 1984 TINA FAELZ COLD CASE MURDER

SOLVED

COPS have made an astonishing breakthrough in the brutal 1984 murder of schoolgirl Tina Faelz.
Almost 27-years ago the 14-year-old's body was found viciously stabbed by a culvert which she had used for  shortcut home from the Foothills High School in Santa Cruz, CA.
But despite a huge police investigation, no one was ever caught for the brutal crime, until now, when DNA has apparently revealed her killer.
Read more here. 

CIGARETTE BUTT SOLVES 1989 ZAHIA SALEM MURDER

BRUTAL

COPS have made an astonishing breakthrough in the brutal 1989 rape and murder of 87-year-old Zahia Salem thanks to a cigarette butt.
DNA found on the end of the Newport, has been linked with Charles Brook Jr, who is already serving time for a 1991 rape.
Read more about it here.

COPS EXHUME BODY OF MARIA RIDULPH; SLAIN IN 1957

DETECTIVES in Illinois exhumed the body of Maria Ridulph--the 7-year-old girl murdered in 1957. Cops are hoping that modern science will help the case they're building against the man they believe raped and murdered her. Jack Daniel McCullough, now 71, was arrested last week in the grisly slaying that garnered national headlines at the time. He is a former police officer in the Seattle area and has denied any involvement.
State's Attorney Clay Campbell said: "Suffice to say science has advanced greatly, thankfully, since that time and we're hoping that advancement in science can assist us in our investigation of this case."
Maria disappeared while playing with a pal near her home, 60 miles west of Chicago. Her body was discovered five months later after spring thaw

COLD CASE USA MAKES ITS DEBUT NEXT WEEK!

IN THE USA, there are tens of thousands of unsolved murders, disappearances and killers who've gotten away with it. We want to make a difference. CRIME SCENE USA is pleased to announce that we will soon be launching a brand new blog: Cold Case USA. Cold Case USA will focus on America's unsolved crimes, its missing people and finding its most heinous criminals. Stay tuned!

NEW CLUE IN UNSOLVED KRISTY WESSELMAN MURDER

IT HAS been 26 long years since Kristy Wesselman, 15, was stabbed to death. A long wait for justice since there have been no arrests in the heartbreaking case. Yesterday marked the grim anniversary of the unsolved murder in DuPage, Illinois. But her mom has never given up hope.
Sandy Wesselman said: “I silently promised her I would never stop trying to find the person who killed her. My silent promise to Kristy has remained steadfast."
Now, detectives have revealed a new piece of evidence they feel could help solve the slaying. Kristy was wearing an antique pearl ring with a gold mounting when she was raped and murdered on July 21, 1985 while walking through a field on her way home from the supermarket, Sgt. Robert

JACK DANIEL McCULLOUGH'S HISTORY OF SEX TERROR

HE'S A monster. That's the word around the campfire on Jack Daniel McCullough, the 71-year-old Seattle man charged with the 1957 sex slaying of Maria Ridulph. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, McCullough has a long, long troubling history of molestation, sexual perversion, violence and terror.
* One of his sisters told cops McCullough--originally from Sycamore, Illinois-- sexually abused her on numerous occassons and used her as a lookout when he was “doing that to other neighborhood girls as well ...while he did so.”
* While a cop in Washington state, sexually assaulted a 13-14-year-old runaway in the early 1980s.

JACK DANIEL MCCULLOUGH BUSTED FOR 1957 MURDER

PRETTY MARIA RIDULPH

COPS have made an astonishing arrest in a murder case which is more than 50-years old. 
Back in December 1957 Maria Ridulph was playing with a friend outside her Sycamore, IL home when a young man walked up and introduce himself as "Johnny". 
She accepted piggyback rides from the mysterious stranger and her friend left her, playing with him. 
It was the last time the girl dubbed "Pretty Maria" by newspapers at the time, would be seen alive.      
For the next five months, almost the entire 7000-strong community, searched alongside FBI agents for the girl but in in April 1958 their worst fears were realised when Maria’s decomposed remains turned up beneath an oak tree near Galena. Now more than half-a-century later

FLA. COPS SOLVE 1971 GINA JUSTI COLD CASE MURDER

FOR NEARLY 40 years, the Justi family has desperately wondered who killed Gina Justi. Just 14-years-old when she was raped and murdered in August 1971 and left to die in an orange grove, the family now has some answers. Florida cops announced yesterday that they got a DNA hit on a man named Jerry Fletcher, now 69, who is serving a life sentence for killing another teenage girl in Illinois in 1974.
Fletcher had worked as a painter in the Tampa area at the time of the vicious slaying but his name never came up until the DNA match. When detectives interviewed him, he quickly clued into why they were there

KIRK RIVERS CONFESSES TO UNSOLVED 2007 MURDER

WAS IT A guilty conscience? His motive is unclear but in a homicide case that generated zero suspects after four hard years, detectives will take what they can get. Kirk Jared Rivers, 22, on the left, calmly walked into Sacramento County Sheriff’s department Monday morning bearing a note in which he claimed responsibility for the 2007 killing of John Pogacar, 39, according to spokesman Jason Ramos. Rivers, 18 at the time of the killing, gave no immediate indication of his motive for the crime, nor for waiting four years to confess. Cops, naturally enough, were immediately skeptical.

DNA CRACKS DEAF DAWN NILES' 1981 COLD CASE SLAY

AS TEENS

30 YEARS LATER

A 30-YEAR-OLD Chicago cold case has finally been cracked thanks to new DNA evidence.
Dawn Niles was last seen alive in March 1981, when she left the Windy City's Hinsdale South High School with her boyfriend Gary Albert. Five days later a fisherman found the 15-year-old's body buried in a nearby forest.
She had been repeatedly stabbed and an autopsy later revealed that she had been three months pregnant at the time of her death.