The Gare de Perpignan murders is a French criminal case. Between 1995 and 2001, four girls disappeared, and three were found dead in similar conditions. Authorities initially thought it was the work of a serial killer. In June 2015, three of the four disappearances were cleared up and involved two different murderers.
Nikki Araguz Loyd (June 4, 1975 – November 6, 2019) was an American same-sex marriage activist, author, and public speaker.
Max Alsberg (16 October 1877 – 11 September 1933) was a famous criminal lawyer of the Weimar Republic.
Alsberg worked primarily as a criminal defense lawyer; he defended Karl Helfferich in 1920 and Carl von Ossietzky in 1931. He also wrote plays (Voruntersuchung in 1927, and Konflikt). His best known contribution to legal science is the handbook Der Beweisantrag im Strafprozess.
Max Alsberg committed suicide by gunshot on 11 September 1933.
George Hill Hodel Jr. (October 10, 1907 – May 17, 1999) was an American physician and suspect in the murder of Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia. He was never formally charged with the crime, but is believed by many to have been the murderer, including by two of his children. He was also accused of raping his daughter, Tamar Hodel, but was acquitted of that crime. He lived overseas several times, primarily between 1950 and 1990 in the Philippines.
Christine Papin (8 March 1905 – 18 May 1937) and Léa Papin (15 September 1911 – 24 July 2001) were two French sisters who, as live-in maids, were convicted of murdering their employer's wife and daughter in Le Mans on February 2, 1933.
The murder had a significant influence on French intellectuals such as Jean Genet, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jacques Lacan, and was considered symbolic of class struggle by leftist polemicists. The case formed the basis of publications, plays, and films, as well as essays, spoken word, songs, and artwork.
Amanda Marie Knox (born July 9, 1987) is an American author, activist, and journalist. She spent almost four years incarcerated in Italy following her wrongful conviction for the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a fellow exchange student with whom she shared an apartment in Perugia. In 2015, Knox was definitively acquitted by the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation.Knox, aged 20 at the time of the murder, called the police after returning to her and Kercher's apartment following a night spent with her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, and finding Kercher's bedroom door locked and blood in the bathroom. During the police interrogations that followed, the conduct of which is a matter of dispute, Knox allegedly implicated herself and her employer, Patrick Lumumba, in the murder. Initially, Knox, Sollecito, and Lumumba were all arrested for Kercher's murder, but Lumumba was soon released due to him having a strong alibi. A known burglar, Rudy Guede, was arrested a short time later following the discovery of his bloodstained fingerprints on Kercher's possessions. He was later found guilty of murder in a fast-track trial and was sentenced to a 30-year prison sentence, later reduced to 16 years. In December 2020, an Italian court ruled that Guede could complete his term doing community service.In their initial trial, in 2009, Knox and Sollecito were convicted and sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison, respectively. Pre-trial publicity in Italian media, which was repeated by other media worldwide, portrayed Knox in a negative light, leading to complaints that the prosecution was using character assassination tactics. A guilty verdict at Knox's initial trial and her 26-year sentence caused international controversy, as US forensic experts thought evidence at the crime scene was incompatible with her involvement. A prolonged legal process, including a successful prosecution appeal against her acquittal at a second-level trial, continued after Knox was freed in 2011. On March 27, 2015, Italy's highest court definitively exonerated Knox and Sollecito. However, Knox's conviction for committing defamation against Lumumba was upheld by all courts. On January 14, 2016, Knox was acquitted of defamation for saying she had been struck by policewomen during the interrogation.Knox subsequently became an author, an activist, and a journalist. Her memoir, Waiting to Be Heard, became a best seller. In 2018, she began hosting The Scarlet Letter Reports, a television series which examined the "gendered nature of public shaming".
The kidnapping of nine-year-old George Weyerhaeuser occurred in 1935 in Tacoma, Washington, United States. The son of prominent lumberman J. P. Weyerhaeuser, George was successfully released for ransom and eventually succeeded his father as the chairman of the Weyerhaeuser company. The four participants in the kidnapping were apprehended and sentenced to prison terms totaling 135 years.
