Nice Try

Joshua Gardner may be a sex offender, but he’s a creative one. Last year the 22-year-old visited Minnesota’s Stillwater Area High School three times, claiming to be Caspian James Crichton-Stuart IV, the Fifth Duke of Cleveland. He spoke in an English accent and insisted that students, staff and even the principal call him “your grace.”

Student journalists caught on when he misspelled the name of his “castle,” and they soon discovered Gardner was on probation after having sex with a 14-year-old girl in 2002. He now faces up to 21 months in prison.

| Crime · Oddities

Joseph Rodriguez

Four-year-old Joseph Rodriguez had been playing outside his aunt’s residence in East Harlem in September 1936 when he disappeared.

A few days later, his aunt received the following telegram:

Pauline, Joseph will be back on Wednesday. Doctor will not let me move him.

But Joseph never reappeared. His disappearance is one of the oldest unsolved missing persons cases in New York City.

| Crime

The Gentle Sex

The first known serial killer was actually a woman, known as Locusta, a professional poisoner who lived in Rome during the first century A.D.

In 54, she killed the Emperor Claudius with a poisoned dish of mushrooms, and the following year she was convicted of a separate poisoning. Hearing of this, Nero rescued her from execution — so she could poison Britannicus for him.

They made a good partnership, Nero guaranteeing her safety during his lifetime, but when he died the Romans took an awful revenge. According to legend, Locusta was publicly raped by a specially trained giraffe, then torn apart by wild animals. Talk about cruel and unusual.

| Crime · Death · History

Copycat

In 1964-65, a mysterious killer murdered six prostitutes around London, leaving their nude bodies in various locations around the city or dumping them in the Thames.

His identity has never been determined, but he’s known as Jack the Stripper.

| Crime

Långrocken

In 1893, five years after Jack the Ripper disappeared from London, someone began attacking and raping women and girls in the Swedish city of Norrköping.

He struck in the early snowy months, all over Norrköping and always after dark, alarming the city, which came to know him as Långrocken, “the Longcoat.” As many as 18 undercover policemen patrolled in women’s clothes in an attempt to trap him, to no avail.

The attacks stopped suddenly in the spring. The crimes have never been solved.

| Crime

D.B. Cooper

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Dbc.jpg

FBI age progression of D.B. Cooper, who ransomed 36 airline passengers for $200,000 in 1971, then ordered the plane into the air again and jumped out somewhere over southwest Washington.

No trace of him has ever been found. It’s still the world’s only unsolved skyjacking.

| Crime

No Tips Either Way

Okay, you’re a chef. Which of these trays was requested for a singer’s dressing room, and which is the last meal of a Texas death-row inmate?

A. Neil Diamond (“Love on the Rocks”)
B. Nelly (“Hot in Herre”)
C. Smokey Robinson (“Tears of a Clown”)
D. B.B. King (“The Thrill Is Gone”)
E. Cornelius Goss (beat a Dallas homeowner to death with a board)
F. Gerald Mitchell (shotgunned two customers during a Houston drug deal)
G. James Collier (shot two Wichita Falls residents while stalking his daughter)
H. James Powell (raped and murdered a 10-year-old in Beaumont)
I. Paul Nuncio (strangled a 61-year-old in Plainview)

1. BBQ chicken wings, chips, fruit, ginger ale
2. 1 apple, 1 orange, 1 banana, coconut, peaches
3. One pot of coffee
4. Enchiladas, burritos, chocolate ice cream, cantaloupe (whole, split in half)
5. Chinese takeout, coffee
6. 1 bag of assorted Jolly Ranchers
7. Baked salmon, french fries, fruit platter, salad, soda
8. Nothing
9. Thirty jumbo shrimp, cocktail sauce, baked potato, French fries, ketchup, butter, one T-bone steak, one chocolate malt, one gallon of vanilla ice cream, and three cans of Big Red

Click for Answer
| Crime · Entertainment · Puzzles

Benjamin Bathurst

On Nov. 25, 1809, British diplomat Benjamin Bathurst was preparing to leave the small German town of Perleberg. He stood outside the inn, watching his portmanteau being loaded onto the carriage, stepped out of the light, and was never seen again.

A nearby river was dragged, and outbuildings, woods, ditches, and marshes were searched, but no trace of Bathurst was ever found. A reward was offered for information, but none came forth.

Bathurst had been urging Austria into war against the French, but Napoleon swore on his honor that he had played no part in the disappearance. The mystery has never been solved.

| Crime · History · Oddities