Killer Book of True Crime by Tom Philbin and Michael Philbin

Another book by Tom Philbin and Michael Philbin.

The Killer Book of True Crime by Tom Philbin and Michael Philbin

This book covers everything from Homicide, Rape and Mass Murder to the more mundane crimes like car theft and arson. I found the whole thing very informative and very interesting. (Having always been interested in Criminal Justice, this book was right up my alley. I think I will go buy the book for myself!)

I wanted to cover some interesting things I found in the book:

The Brinks Job

The Brinks Job was one of the best planned and best executed bank robberies of all time. On January 17, 1950, seven armed thieves in Boston made off with $1,218,211.29 in cash and $1,557,183.83 in checks, money orders, and other securities. The Job took seventeen minutes and the FBI spent $29 million investigating it.

The mastermind of the group who concocted the whole thing was Anthony "Fats" Pino. It took eighteen months to plan out and they made twenty-seven trips to the Brinks building complex and made copies of keys from the lock cylinders. They took the cylinders, made a key, then returned the cylinders before they were missed.

When they entered the building on January 17th, they got to the counting room easily due to the fact that they had keys and had on chauffeurs uniforms and bizarre masks so they could not be easily identified. In fact, it would be 5 years and 361 days before they were caught.

One of the robbers, "Specs" O'Keefe had entrusted his $90,000 of his share to a fellow thief and when he asked for it back, the other man wouldn't give it to him. O'Keefe threatened to go to the cops if he wasn't paid. Pino and others reacted by hiring Elmer "Trigger" Burke, a New York hitman, to "clip" O'Keefe. He was unsuccessful and O'Keefe went to the authorities. They were all arrested only 5 days before the statute of limitations would have expired. All they had to do was wait 5 more days.

We have already covered Serial Killers in my previous posting. But they are nonetheless extremely interesting.

Mass Murderers

The difference between Mass Murderers and Serial Killers is that mass murderers kill several people (sometimes large crowds) at one time. Serial Killers kill 3 or more people over the course of a year or more.
Some infamous Mass Murderers are:

-Ronald DeFoe Jr. who murdered his entire family in their sleep on the early morning of November 13, 1974. The real Amityville Horror had taken place. He shot his entire family: his mother, his father, his two brothers and his two sisters. They were all found in the same position: lying face down in there beds, faces in the pillows.

-Howard Unruh was a soldier in WWII who after being discharged return to his home town of Camden, New Jersey. He had a shooting gallery in his basement that he used quite often and practiced regularly with several knives he had. On September 6, 1946 something finally broke inside him and while walking the streets of Camden, he randomly shot to death anyone who was around. He killed 13 people in a matter of minutes.

-On July 21, 1984, James Oliver Huberty walked into a McDonalds near the Mexican border on Interstate Highway 5 in San Ysidro, California. He was carrying an Uzi, a shotgun and a pistol, the weapons in plain sight. Then he began shooting at anything that moved: children, men and women, and didn't stop until SWAT picked him off over an hour later. The final toll was twenty-one dead, including Huberty, and thirty adults and children injured.

-On July 14, 1966 in Chicago in a place called Jeffrey Manor, eight nurses were found killed in their apartment. At 6 in the morning Mrs. Freda Windmiller heard what she thought was screaming. She got dressed to investigate. Meanwhile Robert Hall, walking his dog, heard the screams and rushed to where they were coming from.

When Hall and Windmiller got there, they saw a young, dark skinned woman crouching on a ledge outside of a second story window, screaming for help and speaking in half broken english. They were afraid that she would jump and convinced her to go back through the window through the house.

When the officers arrived on the scene, they discovered eight young nurses in the apartment, all stabbed several times. The girl had escaped being killed by hiding under the bed until the killer left, then she waited for hours to make sure he had gone and then climbed out onto the ledge and started screaming.

Their names are:

Pamela Wilkening, twenty years old, stabbed in the left breast but then finally strangled by a bed sheet.

Mary Ann Jordan, twenty years old, stabbed three times in the neck, breast and eye.

Suzanne Farris, twenty-one years old, stabbed eighteen times in the back, neck and chin. She was also sexually assaulted.

Nina Schmele, twenty-four years old, stabbed in the neck and then strangled.

Valentina Pasion, twenty-three years old, stabbed in the neck.

Merlita Gargullo, twenty-two years old, stabbed and strangled.

Patricia Matusek, who was twenty years old. (Its not said how she died, but I figure she was stabbed as well.

Gloria Davy, who was twenty-three years old. The killer paid special attention to her.

The book also covers criminal investigation, rape, terrorism, theft, death row, prison, stalking, female killers, arson and much more. It's a great read if this is what your interested in, but still very informative if your just looking for a specific topic. I will be buying this book for myself as soon as I get money and can buy it.

Again, anything by the Philbin brothers is a great read. Recommend it. :)

Killer Book of Serial Killers

This book, written by Tom Philbin and Michael Philbin, is a goldmine of some of the worst serial killers out there, such as John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz, and many more.

The first chapter in the book, however, is about Albert Fish and his kidnapping, and subsequent consumption of, 9-year-old Grace Budd in 1928. Yes, he cannibalized her. Sick bastard.

Ted Bundy

It's no wonder all the women went with him, he was rather good looking! He liked women with long dark hair, parted in the middle. He would feign an injury and ask the unsuspecting woman for help. She obliges and walks with him to his VW. He layed the back seat of his car flat and hid a tire iron behind the seats. When a woman came with him, he would take out the tire iron, knock the woman unconsious, and then take her to a wooded area, kill her then rape her. Nice eh?
Authorities estimate that, conservatively, he has killed over forty women. They will never know for sure because dead bodies dont talk and Ted Bundy was sent to the electric chair on January 25, 1989.

John Wayne Gacy

It is said that the most dangerous position a young boy could be in was with John Wayne Gacy in his home.
He had a home with a crawl space underneath it, and occasionally he would torture and kill a young boy and bury his body beneath his house in the crawl space. His neighbors started to complain about the smell, which Gacy had claimed was sewage problems, just like everyone else had.
When officers discovered the bodies, they discovered that Gacy had covered the bodies with lime to hasten decomposition. They discovered 27 bodies and Gacy confessed to five more.
Gacy was executed May 10, 1994 by lethal injection.

David Berkowitz
The Son of Sam

David Berkowitz was convinced demons were talking to him, and they wanted blood. They instructed him to drive the streets or wander the malls/clubs until they saw a victim that they liked. Then he would walk up to them and shoot them, usually people or couples in their cars. The demons liked long dark haired women.
Near the end, the demons told him to go on a shooting spree in a campground in Southampton, Long Island. Luck was with those on the island as it had started to rain, then downpour. Berkowitz decided to pull over and wait it out. Soon however, the demons told him to go home, the rain had cleared out too many prospects. When he got home, the demons criticized him on his inability to complete the mission. They told him he had to die. The police had finally discovered who was behind the killings because of a traffic ticket.
Soon, every available officer surrounded his house. When he was arrested, he just looked at them and smiled. Like it was all just a game.

I enjoyed reading the book and learning about the different serial killers. I did not enjoy reading the Albert Fish story, because I dont much like cannabalism, and they only focused on one victim: Grace Budd. To be a serial killer, you must have killed at least three people and the killings must be over a long period of time, 1.5 years at least.

I just finished their first book: The Killer Book of True Crime, and I will post the fascinating facts and stories of the book soon. I want to own these books for myself. Happy Reading!