World's Worst Crimes: An A-Z of Evil Deeds (14 page)

To punish this highly public criminal even more, he was sent to the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, where he was kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day until his death from cancer on 10 June 2002.

Meanwhile, Sammy ‘The Bull’ Gravano remains within the safety of the witness protection programme to this day.

Grave Crimes

William Burke and William Hare will always remain linked, like Laurel and Hardy or pirates and the Caribbean. Alone, living in Edinburgh in the late-1820s, they were nothing: just a labourer and the keeper of a disreputable boarding house. But together they were Burke and Hare, the most famous body-snatchers of them all – even though they ended up differently. For Hare, who turned King’s Evidence and was a witness at Burke’s trial, died later in London, after living under an assumed name; and Burke went the way of their joint victims. After he was hanged, his body was dissected at a public lecture by the Professor of Surgery at Edinburgh University, and his skeleton can still be seen today in the University’s Anatomical Museum.

It was in 1827 that the pair first met, when Burke moved to Edinburgh with a woman called Helen Dougal. As Irishmen, they had much in common; and when one of Hare’s lodgers died who better to help carry the body off to the house of the celebrated anatomist Dr. Robert Knox than his new friend William Burke?

Until the passing of the Anatomy Act in 1832, every dead person, except executed criminals, was required to have a Christian burial. So it was extremely difficult for practising anatomists and their students to get hold of the necessary raw material. Knox, then, was delighted to accept the body from Burke and Hare, with few questions asked, and he paid more than seven and a half pounds for it.

Burke and Hare, thrilled by their windfall, spotted a gap in the market and soon filled it. They began to lure travellers, usually to Hare’s boarding house, and ply them with drink. Once befuddled, they simply smothered them. At least fifteen people went the same way, at prices ranging from eight to fourteen pounds, until a couple who’d been staying with Burke and Helen Dougal one day spotted the body of a woman hidden under a pile of straw. They went to the police with what they’d seen.

Burke, after turncoat Hare gave evidence against him, was hanged on 28 January 1829. Hare then fled to London and Helen Dougal to Australia. Dr. Knox’s house was invaded by a mob – two of the victims had been well-known on the city’s streets – and his lectures were interrupted by heckling. In the end he left Edinburgh and, unable to get another university position, ended his days as an obscure practitioner in east London.

The Great Train Robbery

The Great Train Robbery of 1963 is one of the most famous crimes in British history. A gang of fifteen London criminals hijacked a train and stole over two million pounds sterling in used banknotes; the same amount today would be equivalent to about forty million pounds. However, it was not only the huge amount of money stolen that ensured their notoriety: the heist was also seen by many sections of the popular British press as a highly romantic, flamboyant act on the part of the London underworld. In particular, gang member Ronnie Biggs came to be regarded as a swashbuckling figure who had flouted the authorities and got away with it. One central feature of the robbery that appealed to the public was that no guns were used – although, in actual fact, the robbery was a violent crime, since the train driver was hit over the head with iron bars and was permanently injured. This unpleasant reality was, in some quarters, conveniently forgotten, and in time the train robbers became working-class heroes who were regarded with a great deal of affection by the British public.

Planning The Heist

The gang was led by a man named Bruce Reynolds, who planned the operation from the beginning. He was an antiques dealer who drove an Aston Martin, and liked to flash his money around. The front man for the gang was John Wheater, a solicitor with an upper-class background who rented the farmhouse where the gang hid after the heist. Next was Buster Edwards, an ex-boxer turned con man, later immortalized by Phil Collins in the film Buster. Other gang members included Charlie Wilson, a bookmaker, and two big men known as Gordon Goody and Jimmy Hussey, the brawn of the operation. Last, but not least, was the youngest member of the gang, Ronnie Biggs, who as yet had little experience of criminal life.

The operation was meticulously planned, using information about the times large amounts of cash were carried on postal trains going in and out of London. A quiet site outside Cheddington, in Buckinghamshire, was selected, so that the robbers could flag down the train and bag the money without attracting too much attention. The site was also chosen because it was near a military base, where large supply vehicles often travelled around. In this way, the robbers hoped that their movements would not arouse suspicion.

Attacked With Iron Bars

On 8 August 1963, a few minutes after three o’clock in the morning, the raid began. Wearing railway workers’ overalls, the gang rigged up some temporary signals on the line, using batteries for power. Seeing the red ‘stop’ light ahead, the driver brought the train to a halt. When it stopped, a fireman, David Whitby, got out to find out what the trouble was. Whitby was pulled off the track by Buster Edwards and, once he realized that a robbery was in progress, did not try to resist. However, when the driver, Jack Mills, then got off, other members of the gang attacked him with iron bars, causing him to bleed from the head. Mills collapsed on the side of the track.

More mistakes were made as the train robbers began to panic. The gang included a retired train driver, brought in by Ronnie Biggs to move the train into position so that the mailbags could be easily dropped off. However, the elderly train driver did not understand the workings of modern trains, and was unable to move the stopped train. The injured Mills, still bleeding, was forced to take over and drive the train into position. The gang then formed a human chain to unload over a hundred sacks of money, and made their getaway.

Rounding Up The Gang

The gang hid out at a nearby farmhouse, Leatherslade Farm. Here, they drank cups of tea and played the board game Monopoly, allegedly using the real banknotes from their haul as money. This activity proved to be their downfall. By the time the police reached the farmhouse, the gang had scattered, but they had left incriminating fingerprints on the Monopoly board and elsewhere. In this way, police were able to identify the men, many of whom were known criminals.

Eventually, thirteen of the fifteen gang members were apprehended and brought to justice. Bruce Reynolds spent five years on the run before the police finally caught up with him. He was then tried and received a prison sentence, of which he served ten years. Buster Edwards fled to Mexico but later gave himself up. Charlie Wilson made a daring escape from prison while serving his sentence, and lived quietly outside Montreal, Canada, for a time until police traced him via a telephone call his wife made to her parents in England. Biggs also made a dramatic escape from jail, after serving over a year of his sentence. He underwent plastic surgery, travelled around the world and then settled in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The Later Years

In his later years, Biggs became notorious as the one Great Train Robber to avoid capture – even though his initial role in the robbery had been a small one.

However, in his later years he became ill, having suffered several strokes, and grew tired of living abroad. He announced his intention to come back to Britain, even if he risked being imprisoned in his bad state of health. When he returned, he was duly apprehended and today continues to serve out his sentence in prison.

In the end, most of the Great Train Robbers were brought to justice. However, the money was not recovered, though some gang members complained they lost too much to money launderers and the like. Thus, the Monopoly players of the gang may have collected their money, but they did not pass ‘Go’ – instead, they went straight to jail.

A Hair Out of Place

Even in the early days of forensic science it was recognised that a single strand of hair or fibre could contain enough evidence to convict the most cunning and calculating killer. The case of Johnny Fiorenza is a prime example.

In 1936 Nancy Titterton, a 33-year-old writer, was discovered dead in the New York apartment she shared with her husband, NBC executive Lewis Titterton. Her naked body had been found by two furniture delivery men lying face down in an empty bath with a pyjama jacket knotted round her throat and her underclothes scattered across the bedroom floor, indicating that the motive had been sexual.

On his first visit to the crime scene Assistant Chief Inspector John Lyons was optimistic of making an early arrest as the killer had been careless: in his haste to escape he had left behind part of a length of cord used to bind the victim’s wrists, which might be traced back to him. Muddy footprints on the carpet were initially ignored, as a preliminary examination revealed that they contained traces of lint such as might be found in furniture manufacture and they were therefore attributed to the delivery men who discovered the body.

However, the search for the cord uncovered the fact that a New York wholesaler had sold a roll of it to the very same furniture store which had delivered a chair to Mrs Titterton on the afternoon of the murder. Then the city crime lab discovered a hair on the bedspread where the rape had taken place. A microscopic examination revealed it to be horsehair of the type used in furniture upholstery.

As both delivery men had arrived at the apartment together Inspector Lyons assumed that one of them must have gone there earlier; Mrs Titterton would have let him in as both men had visited the apartment on several previous occasions. When Lyons called at the furniture store he questioned the proprietor, who had been one of the two men to discover Mrs Titterton’s body and who could account for his whereabouts on the morning of the murder. His assistant, however, had been absent from the shop and claimed to have been visiting his probation officer at the time. But, as Inspector Lyons discovered, the probation office was closed that morning for the Easter holiday.

When confronted with the evidence Johnny Fiorenza broke down and confessed. It seems likely that he placed Mrs Titterton in the bath not to revive her, but to cover himself in the event that he was caught when he would claim that her death had been an accident.

But the judge and jury saw it as a cunning act of self-preservation by a cold-hearted killer. They sent Fiorenza to the electric chair.

The Hillside Stranglings

It is a common misapprehension that sexually motivated serial killers are all social misfits – twisted losers unable to find any other kind of gratification. The truth is rather more sinister. Plenty of serial killers are outwardly eligible men who have little trouble seducing women. The two men known as the ‘Hillside Stranglers’ are cases in point. Kenneth Bianchi was a good-looking young man in his mid-twenties, whose long-time girlfriend was pregnant at the time his murderous rampage began. His cohort, 40-year-old Angelo Buono, was no one’s idea of good-looking but was nevertheless enormously popular with women. However, the two conspired together to torture, rape and murder fourteen victims.

Adopted

Kenneth Bianchi was born on 22 May 1951 in Rochester, New York. His mother was a prostitute who immediately gave him up for adoption. Three months later he was adopted by the Bianchis. As a child he was given to daydreams and prone to fantasizing and lying. Despite a reasonably high IQ, he underachieved at school. In an effort to change this his mother sent him to a Catholic private school, but while he was there his father died and at thirteen he had to leave because there was no longer enough money to pay the fees. Even so, Bianchi seemed to have absorbed his moral education; he was seen as a straight arrow at school, taking no part in the counterculture of the 1960s.

Immediately on leaving school he had a brief marriage that ended when his wife left him after only eight months. This experience certainly left Bianchi embittered. He studied psychology briefly in college, but then dropped out and took a series of menial jobs before working as a security guard, using the position as an opportunity to steal items from the houses he was meant to be guarding.

In 1975, his life drifting along, he decided to make a move. He headed for Los Angeles where an older cousin was now living. The cousin’s name was Angelo Buono and he was to have a decisive and terrible influence on Kenneth Bianchi.

Family Values

Angelo Buono was also born in Rochester, New York, on 5 October 1934, seventeen years earlier than Bianchi. His parents had divorced when he was young and he had moved to California with his mother, Jenny, in 1939. Buono was trouble from the start. From a young age, he had a precocious interest in sex. As a teenager he would boast to his classmates about raping and sodomizing girls. He stole cars and eventually ended up in reform school. In 1955 he briefly married a high-school girlfriend after she became pregnant, but left her almost immediately. He soon married again, to Mary Castillo, and had five more children with her, before she divorced him in 1964 due to his persistent sexual and physical abuse. The next year, he was married again, to a single mother of two called Nannette Campino. The couple had two more children, until she finally divorced him in 1971 when, in addition to the abuse he visited on her, he raped her daughter.