May 28: The Monster of Marcinelle kidnaps preteen in Belgium
May 28: The Monster of Marcinelle kidnaps preteen in Belgium
Plus: missing woman possible connected to Brian Kohberger's parents, missing 20-year-old, and more.
Welcome to the final Tuesday edition of Today in True Crime. After this week, we’ll send occasional updates and newspaper clippings through history, and let readers know when we have new stories on our website, True Crime Time.
1993: Beverley Allitt found guilty of horrific crimes
She was only 24 when she was given thirteen life sentences for the most heinous of crimes: killing four children, and trying to kill even more of them.
Beverley Allitt was a serial killer and a British nurse who suffered from anorexia and Munchausen syndrome by proxy—a personality disorder where caregivers create symptoms in their patients to get attention for themselves.
She was severely underqualified for her job at the pediatric ward, but the ward was so low on staff that they needed her. She only worked there for eight weeks before folks raised the alarm that she was hurting the babies she was supposed to be caring for. She was arrested, found guilty, and locked up for life.
In the ward, her M.O. was to inject her tiny patients—some only a few weeks old—with insulin, potassium, or air bubbles. In this way, she killed four babies, and tried to kill nine others.
When she was charged with these murders, she laughed.
Explore More
Read: Beverly Allitt: the nurse who killed babies, JRSM
Listen: Beverly Allitt, True Crime All The Time
Watch: Nightmare In A Children's Hospital: The Killer Nurse Beverley Allitt, Real Crime
1996: Young Sabine Dardenne kidnapped by child molester
Sabine Dardenne was 12 years old when she disappeared in Belgium. She was found three months later, imprisoned in a tiny cellar with another girl. They had been kidnapped and sexually abused by a pedophile named Marc Dutroux, who built the custom cellar to hold his victims.
Dardenne and her fellow prisoner weren’t the only girls Dutroux had kidnapped. In the man’s yard, police found the bodies of two eight-year-olds who had starved to death while Dutroux was serving time in prison for theft.
His wife also lived in the house, but was “too scared” to go down to the basement and feed the girls. As Dutroux’s crimes unfolded, the public learned that he had also kidnapped two teenagers and buried them alive, wrapping them in plastic before burying them in his backyard.
Dutroux was tried along with his wife and three associates—but was he part of something much larger? Many people in Belgium suspect that his crimes were part of an international criminal ring, and conspiracy theories swirl around the case. One of the people who believes this is the father of Eefje Lambrecks, one of the teenagers buried alive.
In October 2020, Dutroux was examined by psychiatrists to see if they would approve of a conditional release for him. All three psychiatrists opposed his release full-throatedly. Dutroux was a “sadistic psychopath,” they wrote, with “no remorse for his victims.”
Explore More
Read: I Choose to Live, Sabine Dardenne
Listen: The Monster of Marcinelle: Marc Dutroux, Our True Crime Podcast
Watch: How a massive police failure let a monster run rampant, 60 Minutes Australia
2011: From a campsite by a lake, Madison Scott vanishes
Twenty-year-old Madison Scott was camping and celebrating a friend’s birthday near a lake in the Canadian province of British Columbia when she went missing.
Her body wasn’t found for 12 years.
Scott worked in the logging industry with her dad as an apprentice mechanic, and was a social butterfly who loved to party with friends. On the night of her disappearance, she had driven her truck to the campsite, set up her tent, and reveled with her buddies—but then she went to bed in her tent, telling several friends she was spending the night there.
The next morning, her tent was unzipped and she was missing, but no one realized it at the time. In fact, there was a second, larger party the next night, during which someone flattened her tent. It wasn’t until the following morning, when Scott’s parents came to the lake and saw the scene, that they called the police.
Police suspected from the beginning that this was a criminal investigation—that Scott hadn’t wandered off on her own. Had someone showed up late to the party and kidnapped her? They were unable to find any evidence of someone holding a grudge against Scott.
But 12 years later, when her body was found on a rural property in the area, it became clear that something criminal had happened to her. Today, authorities still don’t know what precisely happened to her, but they’re closer to the truth than they were 12 years ago.
Explore More
Listen: The Disappearance of Madison Scott, Cold Canada: Unsolved Murders
Watch: The Disappearance of Madison Scott, Dark Curiosities
2022: Dana Smithers last seen on camera
The last time anyone saw 45-year-old Dana Smithers, she was captured on her friend’s Ring camera, walking home and holding her phone.
She must have returned to her home in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, because that’s where her phone and other personal effects were found. But after that, no one saw her for a year—until then her remains were found in a wooded area next to a highway.
Smithers was bubbly and gregarious, but had struggled with substance abuse for some time. However, when she disappeared, she seemed to be getting better. She was on medication and was religious about taking it.
She also had three children, who were the center of her life. In fact, her sister knew something was really wrong when Smithers missed her annual Memorial Day celebration with her children—something she would never choose to do.
Strangely, online sleuths discovered that in 2023, the parents of Brian Kohberger—who is charged in the horrific quadruple murder of college students in Moscow, Idaho—were asked to testify in Monroe County, PA.
Rumors flew: was Kohberger responsible for Smithers’ death? He had been living in Monroe County at the time. Local PA police strongly denied that there was any connection between the two crimes. But still, the internet wonders.
Explore More
Read: Sister hoping for new clues in disappearance of Pennsylvania woman Dana Smithers, last seen on camera 7 months ago, NBC News
Watch: Dana Smithers | Bryan Kohberger's Parents to Testify in front of Investigative Grand Jury?, Grizzly True Crime
From the Headlines
A murderous romance or a frame job? Latest look at Karen Read murder trial, NBC Boston
Thirty-one years after the murder of my son Stephen Lawrence, I can forgive his killers – but not the Met, The Guardian
Man convicted of Chicago murder based on blind witness’ testimony sues city, police, Associated Press
Who is Buffalo Woman? Serial killer trial hears of police efforts to identify victim, Toronto Star
4 Inmates, Including 3 Double-Murder Suspects, Escape from Louisiana Jail, People
Couple dead in Brooklyn murder-suicide witnessed by killer’s own mother, New York Daily News
Three years later, investigators still looking for answers in the disappearance of Xavior Harrelson, KWWL
What to Read & Stream
This Serial Killer Movie on Netflix Is Also a Chilling Coming-of-Age Story, Collider
You think you know true crime podcasts? Wait till you hear Tonya's story., NPR
The 17 best true crime shows on Hulu to watch now, Entertainment Weekly
Bill Pullman gets into the twisted mind of a killer. He could use a few laughs now, Los Angeles Times
How Gabby Petito's killing and Brian Laundrie's disappearance went viral on social media, Yahoo
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