A Calender of Creeps and Crimes

Petr Zelenka is not a serial killer that stands out in my mind as being particularly vicious, gruesome or evil, it's his profession that scares me the most. In a year where so many people each and every single one of us has have known people who have become ill, we have trusted medical staff to be there and have our best interests at heart. We trust them to save lives and make decisions for us, to guide us and lead us on the path to recovery, even when sometimes, we feel too weak to carry on ourselves. Petr Zelenka was a Czech nurse who worked in a hospital about 100 km away from Prague. I think the most terrifying part about his story is that most people who become nurses, doctors, carers, vets, fire fighters, any profession where caring for another life is at the core of the profession, do so because they want to help people, help make their lives better, help save lives... Not take them away. The trust we put in people when our lives are in the balance is, in most cases, unwaver...

  John George Haigh was born in 1909 to John Robert & Emily, members of the Plymouth Brethren, who took their religion very seriously. They lived in a village in West Yorkshire. Haigh's parents were very protective of their child and did not want him to mix too with the outside world in fear that he would become corrupt, a sinner. They built a tall fence around the garden of their home so nobody could look in or out and as a child he was told that if he ever sinned, a blemish would appear on his skin. He learned how to play piano and sang in the church choir, he listened to classical music. He done well in school, a bright boy, and even obtained a scholarship. It seems that the religious upbringing made Haigh's want to rebel and see what he was missing even greater. Haigh would later tell people of reoccurring religious nightmares he suffered with with as a child followed him into adulthood.  In 1923 Haigh was jailed for fraud. He had been working as a motor engineer but h...

February 25th 1994, police began excavating the home of Fred and Rosemary West at 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester. The majority of the couples crimes happened at the Cromwell Street address. How did a couple this devious go undetected for so long? Their crimes started in 1971 , although Fred's crimes are believed to have dated from before this, and it was not until 1992 that police were alerted to any serious goings on in the three story terrace house and it would be 1994 before they finally had the couple with charges that would stick.  Rose had a very tough upbringing, born into a poor family where her mother suffered greatly with depression. During her pregnancy with Rose she underwent electric shock therapy to try and cure her depression but the therapy was unsuccessful and many have stated that this could have had huge developmental consequences on the unborn Rosemary. As a result, her parents separated and following a trial period of living with her mother, she went to live ...

  On February 23rd 1885 in Exeter, the execution of John "Babbacombe" Lee was scheduled. He had been found guilty of murder earlier in the month. He worked as a servant for a wealthy lady called Emma Keyse and she had been found beaten, her throat slashed and her body set on fire in the home she shared with John Lee. The evidence against Lee was circumstantial. He had been in trouble before for petty theft and he had also threatened to destroy the house claiming he would "level the place to the ashes".  John Lee claimed that he had not been in the house at the time the fire was started but unfortunately, he had no credible alibi. The trial moved forward and all the evidence was put to a jury.  Lee had cuts on his arm and his clothes were covered in blood. There was a bloody knife found in a drawer in the locker beside his bed.  He had a criminal record.  He was the only person in or around the house at the time of the murder.  He had threatened to "level th...

Mike Malloy was born in a rural village in Co. Donegal and like many other Irish at the time he found himself making his way across The Atlantic, in search of a better life in America. While Malloy was a firefighter he fell upon hard times in the 1930s and found himself unemployed and homeless on the streets of New York City. What little money he had, he would spend in a small speakeasy bar called Marino's, located on Third Avenue.  In 1933 a plot was developed by a group who knew Mike for being the local drunk. Tony Marino, Joseph Murphy, Francis Pasqua, Hershey Green, and Daniel Kriesberg would later be called The Murder Trust by the media. The plan was simple, they took out a life insurance policies on Mike's life to the value of $3,500 with the idea that they would let Mike drink himself to death at Marino's speakeasy.  Marino had hatched a similar scheme in the past, taking out a life insurance policy on a woman, with himself named as the sole b...