James Renner is an American author, investigative journalist, producer, and director. He worked as a reporter for Cleveland Scene and was editor of the alternative newspaper The Cleveland Independent. He is known for his work in the thriller, science fiction, and true crime genres. In 2019, Renner founded The Porchlight Project, a nonprofit dedicated to offering support for the families of the missing and murdered.
Robert Christian Boes Hansen, popularly known as the Butcher Baker, was an American serial killer active in Anchorage, Alaska, between 1972 and 1983, abducting, raping and murdering at least seventeen women. Many of the women abducted were released by Hansen into the wilderness and hunted with a Ruger Mini-14 and hunting knives. Hansen was captured in 1983 and sentenced to 461 years' imprisonment without the possibility of parole. He died in 2014 of natural causes at age 75.
Amy Renee Mihaljevic was a ten-year-old American elementary school student who was kidnapped and murdered in the U.S. state of Ohio in 1989.
Autopsy is a television series of HBO's America Undercover documentary series. Dr. Michael Baden, a real-life forensic pathologist, is the primary analyst, and has been personally involved in many of the cases that are reviewed.
Ann Marie Harrison was a 15-year-old American girl who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by two men in Raytown, Missouri. On March 22, 1989, Harrison was abducted from outside her home as she waited for the school bus. She was taken to a house where she was raped by her abductors before being stabbed to death in the trunk of a car. Her two killers: Michael Anthony Taylor and Roderick Nunley were executed for the crime by the state of Missouri via lethal injection, in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
Oba Chandler was an American serial killer and mass murderer who was convicted and executed for the June 1989 murders of Joan Rogers and her two daughters, whose bodies were found floating in Tampa Bay, Florida, with their hands and feet bound. Autopsies showed the victims had been thrown into the water while still alive, with ropes tied to a concrete block around their necks. The case became high-profile in 1992 when local police posted billboards bearing enlarged images of the suspect's handwriting recovered from a pamphlet in the victims' car. Chandler was identified as the killer when his neighbor recognized the handwriting.
Christopher Bernard Wilder, also known as the Beauty Queen Killer and the Snapshot Killer, was an Australian-American serial killer who abducted at least twelve young women and girls, killing eight of them during a six-week, cross-country crime spree in the United States in early 1984. Wilder's series of murders began in Florida on February 26, 1984, and continued across the country through Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nevada and California, with attempted abductions in Washington and New York. Wilder victimized attractive young women, most of whom he would entice by promising to take their pictures. After subduing them, he would torture and rape them before shooting, stabbing with a knife, or strangling them to death. Two or more of his victims were electrocuted using a makeshift electrical cord.
Kelsey Ann Smith was a woman from Overland Park, Kansas who disappeared on June 2, 2007, and was murdered that evening. The story was featured in the international media, including on America's Most Wanted, before her body was found near a lake in Missouri on June 6, 2007.
It is possible to convict someone of murder without the purported victim's body in evidence. However, cases of this type have historically been hard to prove, often forcing the prosecution to rely on circumstantial evidence, and in England there was for centuries a mistaken view that in the absence of a body a killer could not be tried for murder. Developments in forensic science in recent decades have made it more likely that a murder conviction can be obtained even if a body has not been found.
Brian James Dugan is an American convicted rapist and serial killer active between 1983 and 1985 in Chicago's western suburbs. He was known for having informally confessed in 1985 to the February 1983 abduction, rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville, Illinois, which was a highly publicized case. He was already in custody for two other rapes and murders, one of a woman in July 1984 and the other a 7-year-old girl in May 1985. He was sentenced to life after pleading guilty to the latter two crimes.
Bobby Joe Long was an American serial killer and rapist who was executed by the state of Florida for the murder of Michelle Denise Simms. Long abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered at least ten women in the Tampa Bay area in Florida during an eight-month period in 1984.
Robert Anthony Buell was an American child murderer, serial rapist, suspected serial killer, and former planning department worker from Akron, Ohio. He was convicted of the July 17, 1982 murder of 11-year-old Krista Lea Harrison.
The murder of Leanne Tiernan was an English child murder involving a 16-year-old schoolgirl who was abducted less than one mile from her home on 26 November 2000, while returning from a Christmas shopping trip in Leeds, West Yorkshire, and subsequently murdered. The missing person inquiry for Tiernan that followed was one of the largest in the history of West Yorkshire Police, involving the search of around 1,750 buildings, underwater searches of thirty-two drainage wells, the draining of a two-mile section of a canal and the halting of household waste collections.
Tina Marie Harmon was a 12-year-old American girl who was abducted, raped, and murdered on October 29, 1981, after being dropped off in Lodi, Ohio. After the discovery of her body, she was later buried at the Maple Mound Cemetery. Two men were originally convicted of her murder on circumstantial evidence but were eventually released when the conviction was overturned. Harmon's murder was solved in 2010 when DNA from the individual who raped her was matched to Robert Anthony Buell.
The disappearance of Melissa Brannen occurred on December 3, 1989, at the Woodside Apartments in Lorton, Virginia, United States. The five-year-old daughter of Michael and Tammy Brannen, she was raised by her single mother who lived in the complex. She disappeared while attending a party held at the complex for its residents. Caleb Daniel Hughes, a handyman for the complex, was convicted of abduction with the intent to defile and sentenced to 50 years in prison. Her body has never been found, she has never been proven to be dead, and murder charges have never been filed. The case is considered an unsolved homicide by local police.
Barbara Ann Barnes was an American schoolgirl who was murdered in December 1995 at the age of 13. The case remains unsolved. Many have speculated that her uncle may have been responsible for her death, but others believe that the crime was committed by someone local to the area. Journalist James Renner has published his theory that the case may be connected to the murders of Tina Harmon, Krista Harrison, Deborah Kaye "Debbie" Smith, and Amy Mihaljevic.
Daniel Lee Corwin was an American serial killer who was sentenced to death and executed for murdering three women.
The Belize Ripper is an unidentified Belizean serial killer responsible for the abduction, rape, and murder of five girls in Belize City between 1998 and 2000. Despite extensive investigation, aided by the FBI and Scotland Yard, nobody was ever convicted of the murders, all of which remain unsolved.
Ahmad Najib bin Aris was a Malaysian convicted murderer who in 2003 raped and killed Canny Ong, a US-based Malaysian information technology (IT) analyst. The crime made headlines across Malaysia. He was sentenced to death in 2005 after being found guilty in a highly reported trial, and throughout the next 11 years, he made multiple failed appeals against his sentence and was finally executed on 23 September 2016, more than 13 years after murdering Ong. Ahmad Najib was also alleged to have committed at least four charges of rape on four different women, but was not formally charged.
James Otto Earhart was an American murderer, kidnapper and suspected serial killer executed for the 1987 kidnap-murder of 9-year-old Kandy Janell Kirtland in Bryan, Texas. Suspected in at least one more murder during his lifetime, Earhart was posthumously linked to a 1981 murder via DNA conducted by Parabon NanoLabs in 2019, and authorities are investigating whether he can be linked to any other violent crimes committed in Brazos County.
