crime

In 1969, a North Carolina home went up in flames. Inside, Thomas Burke, husband to Velma Barfield, was found dead. At first, no one suspected a thing. But this incident marked the beginning of a deadly pattern. Over the next nine years, friends, family members, and employers of Velma Barfield would die under suspiciously similar circumstances. Velma Barfield would become the first woman in the United States to be ... View more

"My mom." That’s all eight-year-old Christie Downs needed to say. After surviving a stroke and slowly regaining her ability to speak, this soft-spoken reply to investigators shattered the alibi of her mother, Diane Downs — and confirmed what many already suspected. On 19 May 1983, in a quiet corner of Oregon just outside Springfield, Diane Downs pulled her car over on Old Mohawk Road and did the unthinkable: she ... View more

On 2 August 1993, in the sleepy village of Savona, New York, an act of violence so shocking in its brutality would forever alter the landscape of juvenile justice debates in the United States. The victim was four-year-old Derrick Robie, a cheerful, red-headed boy with a love for nature and baseball. The perpetrator was thirteen-year-old Eric Smith—another redhead, known in the village for his quiet nature and trademark thick ... View more

It’s hard to imagine a man so gifted at delivering joy being consumed by such a grim ending. Phil Hartman wasn’t just another comic in the lineup—he was the glue of Saturday Night Live, the golden voice behind Troy McClure, and the everyman with a wicked twist in sitcoms like NewsRadio. And yet, despite a career laced with humour, fame, and respect, Hartman’s life came to a haunting and violent end in 1998, killed while he ... View more

In the summer of 2017, the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach — one of the most iconic luxury destinations in America — nearly welcomed a new investor. Claiming to be Prince Khalid bin Al Saud, a high-ranking member of the Saudi royal family, a man expressed interest in acquiring a $440 million stake in the resort. He arrived in style, trailed by a security entourage, stepping out of a Ferrari California with diplomatic plates ... View more