May 9: The final victim of the Snowtown Murders claimed
Plus: teen disappears right before graduation, two highway victims found, and more.
Welcome to the Thursday edition of Today in True Crime. If you’re a free subscriber, you can upgrade here to receive the entire issue—as well as full issues on Tuesday and Saturday, when we send our Weekend Edition that includes one longer in-depth profile, plus additional case summaries. If you’re a paid subscriber, we truly appreciate your support in keeping this 100% reader-funded venture thriving.
Today in True Crime: Quick Hits
5 years ago: When Gloria Lofton of Austin, Texas, was murdered on May 9, 2019, DNA evidence recovered from the scene matched ex-convict Raul Meza, but Austin police didn't arrest him at the time; he later committed another murder before Austin PD apologized for their "potential investigative lapses."
10 years ago: On May 9, 2014, San Diego barbershop owner Lamar Canady was shot 14 times and killed in his shop, leaving behind a wife and five kids. Two men received life sentences for what they called a “revenge hit.”
20 years ago: When Genovese family mobster Nicholas (Nicky) Cirillo disappeared on May 9, 2004, in New York, it wasn't just another mob hit: some suggest Nicky's father, mob boss Dominick "Quiet Dom" Cirillo, was responsible for his son's disappearance after the latter insulted another mobster.
1924: Wolf Man’s 14-year-old victim vanishes
Serial killer Fritz Haarmann led a “charmed life,” wrote a journalist in 1924.
How charmed? Well, he was able to kill for years with impunity despite some pretty sickening evidence that he was, you know, serial killing.
At one point, two women saw a dead, naked body lying on his bed—and nothing came of it. Another time, those same women found a human mouth boiling merrily in one of Haarmann’s soup pots, but when they took it to the police, they were told that it might have been the snout of a pig.
Haarmann committed his horrific crimes in Germany from 1918 to 1924, a sort of proto-Dahmer decades before America dreamed of such a thing. He assaulted, mutilated, and dismembered his victims—young men and boys—and earned himself nicknames like the Vampire of Hanover and the Wolf Man due to his penchant for biting their throats.
One of his many young victims, 14-year-old Heinz Martin, vanished from a train station on May 9, 1924, and was never seen again, though his clothing was later discovered in Haarmann’s creepy attic apartment.
This murder was sandwiched between a murder two weeks earlier and two more murders three weeks later. Haarmann was escalating, and was finally captured by police that June.
When they searched his attic apartment, they found that the floor, walls, and mattress were stained with blood. Haarmann was thought to be responsible for 27 or more murders.
Explore More
Short read: Fritz Haarmann Was A Popular Butcher In 1920s Germany — Until They Found Out His Meat Was Human, All That's Interesting
Long read: Monsters of Weimar: The Stories of Fritz Haarmann and Peter Kurten, Theodor Lessing, Karl Berg, George Godwin
Listen: E19: MURDER - Fritz Haarmann, Fresh Hell Podcast
Watch: The Brutal Crimes of Fritz Haarmann 'The Wolf of Hanover', Well, I Never
1983: Two bodies are discovered on the same day; linked to the Highway Killer
An ocean away and several decades later, another serial killer was targeting a similar population as Haarmann: young men and boys.
Larry William Eyler, the Interstate Killer or the Highway Killer, used the Midwestern interstate system to zip from victim to victim, as did many other serial killers in the ‘70s and ‘80s. He killed at least 21 people, confessing to many of them right before dying of AIDS complications while on death row.
Eyler’s childhood had a cornucopia of themes that are common among serial killers: an abusive father, a horrible fear of abandonment by his mother, and struggles with his homosexuality.
As an adult, he became known in Indianapolis’ gay community as someone who would suddenly become violent during sex without warning, often whipping out a knife to cut his partners.
This escalated into attempted murder and then actual murder, which often started with sadomasochism before turning deadly. And during the spring of 1983, Eyler was escalating fast.
Over two months, he killed at least five young men. Two of their bodies were discovered on May 9, 1983: Daniel McNeive, riddled with stab wounds and discarded in a field in Indiana, and Jimmie Roberts, stabbed even more times than McNeive and dumped in a creek in Illinois.
The judge who sentenced Eyler to death declared, “If there ever was a person or a situation for which the death penalty is appropriate, it is you.”
Explore More
Short read: Four Decades Later, a Victim of the Highway Killer Is Finally Identified, The New York Times
Long read: Freed to Kill: The True Story of Serial Murderer Larry Eyler, Gera-Lind Kolarik, Wayne Klatt
Listen: 10: Larry Eyler Part I, Murderland Chicago: A Deep Dish of Death
Watch: Serial Killer Documentary: Larry Eyler (The Interstate Killer), Serial Killers Documentaries
1994: Two weeks before her high school graduation, Cleashindra Hall vanishes
When Cleashindra Hall disappeared, it was as though she vanished into thin air. But as her mother said thirty years later, “God is able, but I don’t think that’s what happened to her.”
The last time the 18-year-old was seen, she was at her after-school job. Hall was accustomed to working a few hours at a local doctor’s office in Arkansas, and then calling her parents for a ride home. On May 9, she called at 8 p.m. and told them she wasn’t quite ready to leave and would call for her ride later.
Her mom fell asleep waiting for that second call, and when she woke in the middle of the night, she realized her daughter was missing.
Two weeks later, police searched the home of the doctor, Larry Amos. Hall’s mom thinks the search came too late—if Amos was guilty, he had plenty of time to hide the evidence.
Decades later, Amos told journalists that they shouldn’t be looking into him. Instead, he said somewhat cryptically, “Not only was a report filed, a complaint was filed against one of the detectives. There are very detailed questions that should have been answered about the family and other things.”
Hall herself had no red flags—no troubled-teen past, no creepy boyfriend, no history of running away. She was an honors student with a summer internship, a college acceptance, and plans to become a pediatrician.
She was about to graduate high school. There was no reason for her to just leave her life—so was she taken?
Her mother is still wondering, thirty years later.
Explore More
Read: Hall’s mother pleads for information, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Listen: Cleashindra Hall, The Generation Why Podcast
Watch: MISSING FOR 27 Years: The Bizarre Disappearance of Cleashindra Hall, Rachel Shannon True Crime
1999: The final victim of the Snowtown murders is killed and eaten
One of the most bizarre and notorious cases in Australian history started when police peeked into the vault of an old bank in a sleepy little town called Snowtown—and found eight bodies stuffed into barrels.
The murders were committed by a ring of killers, led by the sadistic John Justin Bunting, who kept something called a “wall of spiders” where he wrote down the names of everyone he wanted to kill.
Bunting hated anyone who he perceived as imperfect—disabled people, gay people, overweight people—and claimed that he was doing a good thing by murdering people because he was targeting pedophiles.
On May 9, Bunting and his gang killed their last victim: David Johnson, the stepbrother of one of the gang members. Johnson’s crime? Being obsessed with cleanliness, which Bunting interpreted as…being gay.
After they killed Johnson, Bunting and one of his helpers sliced off a piece of his thigh, fried it, and ate it.
Explore More
Short read: Bizarre secrets put town in spin, The New Zealand Herald
Long read: Killing For Pleasure: The Definitive Story of the Snowtown Serial Murders, Debi Marshall
Listen: Episode 570: The Snowtown Murders Part I - The Salisbury Mistakes, Last Podcast On The Left
Watch: The Sinister Snowtown Murders, True Crime Central
Newspaper Throwback: 1913
.jpg){kind=link}
On May 9, 1913, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on a theory introduced by M.W. McClaughey of the Department of Justice that suggested Henry Lee Moore—who had killed his mother and grandmother in 1912—was responsible for as many as 25 ax murders that had occurred in recent years throughout the Midwest.
McClaughey’s theory suggested Moore was behind the infamous Villisca axe murders of June 1912, when eight people were brutally murdered in Villisca, Iowa. Moore was never officially tried for all the murders he was accused of, but he did receive a life sentence for killing his mother and grandmother. He was paroled out in 1949.
From the Headlines
Former Soldier Convicted in Killing of Pregnant Army Private Two Decades Ago, The New York Times
Cold case of woman found dead on California hillside more than three decades ago finally solved, The Independent
Madrid apartment cameras captured Florida man carrying suitcase from missing wife's apartment: docs, Fox News
Man randomly confesses to 2016 murder after being approached for welfare check at side of road, AOL
Former roommate of Idaho students murdered breaks silence, FOX13 Seattle
Officials let Tennessee man accused in fatal prison stabbing walk out. He's still missing, The Tennessean
Murder trial opens in death of Detroit-area teen whose disappearance led to grueling landfill search, ABC News
Cold case could be linked to Gainesville student murders, family says, WCJB
What to Read & Stream
‘Bodkin’ Review: Crime in a Small Town? Send in the Podcasters, The New York Times
17 Black True Crime Stories Every Crime Junkie Should Know, The Root
How I Listen to True Crime After Knowing a Murderer, Autostraddle
Amy Poehler Wants Her True-Crime Podcast to Make You Laugh, The New York Times
Thanks for reading today’s issue of Today in True Crime! Comments, questions, suggestions, or corrections? Let us know here.
Great information as usual. I still can't get my head around the fact that Raul Meza only served eleven years for the rape and murder of an eight-year-old child.