Flying Furniture and a President-Masked Nudist: 10 New Year True Crimes
These New Year gatherings were anything but happy...
Most people use New Year's Eve as a reason to celebrate - but not every reveller has good intentions in mind. Here are 10 New Year true crimes, including...
- Proposer to prime suspect
- Ribald Reagan
- Flying furniture leads to murder
- New Year beheading
- Fatal three-way
- The Setagaya murders
- Fatal fumbled fireworks
- Attacking a crowd... to avoid attention
- The racist road trip
- The New Year multiple murder... and subsequent cover up killings
Proposer to Prime Suspect
On New Year's Eve 1997, Sheryl Sheppard was proposed to by Michael Lavoie on live television. She showed off her ring for the cameras and seemed happy... but was reported missing mere days later.
Police report that her bedroom had a bare mattress (stripped of sheets) and a glassless picture frame. A box containing glass was found on the balcony, while her clothing and wallet were all present at the scene.
Lavoie claimed to have dropped Sheryl off at an "adult entertainment facility." Police consider him the prime suspect - but never filed charges. For reasons known only to him, he attempted to take his own life shortly after the disappearance.
Ribald Reagan
In 2015 an Alabama couple were visited by a man clad only in a Ronald Reagan mask and a strategically placed sock. After noticing the political pervert creeping around the outside of the property, the couple yelled at him and scared him off - leaving nothing but the images on their security camera.
The ex-president impersonator was never found - which may have been to his detriment. Temperatures were low enough to be dangerous to a naked human, so perhaps a masked and be-socked skeleton will be a puzzle for future archaeologists?
Flying Furniture leads to Murder
A 2020 party in Milton Keynes, England got out of hand in the worst possible way. An argument escalated to throwing furniture, with a chair leg being hurled over the fence. The flying furniture struck the girlfriend of neighbour Callum Aylett, who subsequently armed himself with a knife and went to express his displeasure with the rowdy revellers. The vengeful knifeman wound up murdering Jay Fathers (an uninvolved guest) and wounding Nicholas Grant (who was involved in the triggering incident.)
Being hit by a hurled chair-leg would not be fun...
New Year Beheading
When Maria Cassagne invited Christian Gomez to stay with her over for Christmas 2014 and New Year, she was probably expecting a friendly family gathering with her offspring. Instead she got an axe through the neck.
It seems that Gomez suffered from schizophrenia and displayed a laundry-list of alarming behaviour. He heard voices coming from underneath his bed, leading him to sit in the living-room over night. He avoided showers because he thought the TV was watching him - and he skinned and buried the family cat.
Things escalated when he caught Cassagne sprinkling his prescribed medication on his food. He finally snapped after being "nagged" to help move some bags to the attic, decapitating Cassagne and leaving her body by the outside bins.
Fatal Three-Way
On New Year's Eve In 2016 Oklahoma an argument between Matthew Webster and Hareth Hameed turned deadly. The two young men were competing for the attention of Victoria Smith - and Hameed ended up shooting Webster, leaving him to die in a car outside a local convenience shop. He was identified and arrested based on the text messages between him and Smith discussing the murder.
Since Smith sent messages approving of the murder and instructed Hameed to switch out his license plate, she was considered involved in the crime.
The Setagaya Murders
On December 31st in 2000, the Setagaya Ward of Tokyo played host to a grim scene. Four members of Mikio family had been murdered, one strangled and the others stabbed to death.
Chillingly, the killer lingered on the scene after the crime. Forensic evidence shows that the murderer stayed at the house for several hours, helping themselves to ice-cream and using the family computer.
Clothing, a knife and DNA were all recovered - even a handful of willow and zelkova tree leaves were found in the pocket of a cast-off sweater, along with bird dropping traces. Police claim that the killer was male with an Asian father and European mother, standing at around 170cm with a thin build... but the killer remains at large.
Fireworks can be deadly, if they hit you.
Fatal Fumbled Fireworks
Australia has enough problems from local fauna without negligently placed fireworks being added to the mix. Unfortunately they led to the death of an Australian at a 2016-2017 New Year's Eve fireworks display. It seems that the man was attempting to light a rocket in the early hours, only for it to launch straight at his head.
A similar incident occurred only hours earlier when a reveller was struck by a firework from a display. Emergency services were unable to revive him, and police later dispatched an arson specialist to investigate the scene.
Attacking a Crowd... to Avoid Attention
With the main street closed on New Year's Eve 2016, the tightly-packed residents of Daytona Beach were enjoying a night of clubbing and drinking... until the police showed up.
Not wanting to be caught up in whatever was going on, Florida man Robert Meszaros had a "brilliant" idea - he drew his pocket knife and started swinging it wildly at the crowd, hoping he could jab his way clear.
Shockingly, the police were interested. He was charged with three counts of aggravated battery (fortunately the injuries were not life-threatening) with a deadly weapon - given that one of the victims was his fiancée, I suspect that he found himself single as a result.
The Racist Road Trip
In 2011, Michal Gunar, Christopher Ising and Kyle Powell capped off their New Year's Eve at a neo-Nazi "meet-and-greet" by going on a drive in New Jersey.
They eventually found and assaulted at least two men, though perhaps Powell had second thoughts. Though he admitted to being the driver for the group (and subsequently was found guilty on conspiracy charges) he claimed to have not taken part in the assaults themselves - and to have made contact with law enforcement. Ironically Gunar faces deportation to his native Slovakia as a result his own conviction.
The New Year Multiple-Murder... and Subsequent Cover-Up Killings
In 2006, Ricky Gray and his nephew Ray Dandridge burst through the door of the Harvey residence, captured and slit the throats of the four-member family, crushed the their skulls with a hammer and set the house ablaze... all to steal a computer, a ring and a basket of cookies.
A week later the pair struck again, killing all three members of the Baskerville-Tucker family. The duo claimed that one of the victims (Ashley Baskerville) had acted as a lookout for them during the first murder.
As a defence, Gray claimed that the acts were performed out of drug addiction and that PCP had left him unaware of his crimes. The legal system disagreed, and he was executed by lethal injection in 2017.
This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.
