World's Worst Crimes: An A-Z of Evil Deeds (31 page)

Whatever their reasons, the Beanes evolved into a cannibal clan. According to later accounts they sired fourteen children in all, who incestuously sired an improbable thirty-two grandchildren. And they hunted in packs. Small parties and single travellers would find themselves surrounded by Beane males, murdered and taken back to the cave for butchering by Beane females. Some were hung on hooks for imminent consumption, but Mrs Beane was also a dab hand at pickling parts in brine. The victims’ cash and possessions were probably used to add some variety to the clan’s daily diet. Some bread and vegetables perhaps, or even animal meat.

Hardly surprisingly, the Galloway coast road earned something of a bad reputation, and when a series of amputated limbs washed up on the Galloway coast, the authorities finally took some action. They rounded up the usual suspects – usually the innkeeper who had seen the missing traveller off – and executed them. This did nothing to halt the mysterious disappearances.

The Beanes were eventually interrupted in mid-feast, sucking on the blood of a woman they had just murdered. The fortunate arrival of an armed band drove them off, saving the dead woman’s husband from a similar fate. He carried the news to Glasgow, and the Provost – some say the King – organized a manhunt with bloodhounds. The latter led 400 soldiers to the Beanes’ cave. It was not a pretty sight. ‘They were all so shocked at what they beheld, that they were almost ready to sink into the Earth. Legs, arms, thighs, hands, and feet of men, women and children were hung up in rows, like dried beef. A great many limbs lay in pickle, and a great mass of money, both gold and silver, with watches, rings, swords, pistols, and a large quantity of cloths, both linen and woollen, and an infinite number of other things, which they had taken from those they had murdered, were thrown together in heaps, or hung up against the sides of the den’.

The Beanes were taken to Leith
en masse.
Their crimes had produced such an outpouring of communal revulsion that a trial was considered unnecessary. The males, their hands and feet cut off, were allowed to bleed to death. The females were forced to watch, and then burned in several large bonfires.

They served to inspire at least one other Scot: Nichol Brown was tried and executed in the mid-eighteenth century for murdering and consuming his wife. At his trial, one witness recounted how Brown had been heard drunkenly outlining his plan to eat the body of a criminal still hanging from a gibbet. Later that evening, he returned with a piece of flesh from the dead man’s thigh and cooked it on the pub fire. His companions had the distinct and unwelcome impression that this was not the first time he had tasted human flesh.

Sick with the Flu

Charles Starkweather, aged 19, wore thick spectacles. He was bow-legged, red-haired, just 5 foot 2 inches tall – and a garbageman in Lincoln, Nebraska. He was also extremely sensitive. And when the parents of his fourteen-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, said something he didn’t like as he waited for her one day at their house, he simply shot them with his hunting-rifle. Caril Ann, when she got back, didn’t seem to mind one way or the other, so he went upstairs and killed her two-year-old step-sister to stop her crying, before settling down with Caril Ann to eat sandwiches in front of the television.

It was January 19th 1958; and, having put up a sign on the front door saying ‘Every Body is Sick with the Flu,’ the couple lived in the house for two days. Then, just before the bodies were discovered, they took off in Starkweather’s hot rod, driving across America like his hero James Dean – and left a string of murders in their wake.

First to die was a wealthy seventy-year-old farmer, whose car they stole when theirs got stuck in the mud. A few hours later, another farmer found the body of a teenage couple in a storm cellar – the girl had been repeatedly raped before being beaten to death. Soon afterwards, there were three more corpses to add to the tally. A rich Nebraskan businessman had been stabbed and shot inside his doorway. Upstairs his wife and their housekeeper had been tied up before being stabbed and mutilated.

There was one more death to come, that of a car-driving shoe-salesman in Douglas, Wyoming. But as the pair tried to make a getaway, one of the cars refused to start. A passer-by stopped and was ordered at gun-point to help release the hand-brake. Instead he grappled with Starkweather, who wrenched himself free and drove off at speed, leaving Caril Ann behind him. A police car – part of the force of 1200 policemen and National Guardsmen who were by now searching for two killers – soon spotted him and gave chase. Starkweather’s windshield was shattered by gunfire and he gave himself up. The man known as ‘Little Red’ then made a confession, proclaiming his hatred of a society full of ‘Goddam sons of bitches looking for somebody to make fun of,’ before dying in the electric chair in Nebraska State Penitentiary on June 25th 1959.

Caril Ann claimed that she’d been kidnapped and was innocent, but she wasn’t believed. She was sentenced to life and let out of prison, on parole, twenty-eight years later.

The murderous couple were to inspire many artists, including Terrence Malick, the reclusive director, who made his debut film,
Badlands
, about the couple, and Bruce Springsteen, whose haunting song
Nebraska
is based on their killing spree.

Sins of the Father

Lyle and Erik Menendez shocked America when, in 1996, they planned and carried out the murder of their wealthy parents, Jose and Kitty. The young men, aged twenty-one and eighteen, paid a visit to their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion one quiet Sunday evening in 1989 and cold-bloodedly shot the pair of them while they were dozing in front of the TV. While the frenzied attack looked, at first glance, to be the work of deranged psychotic killers, it later transpired that the motive for the crime was all too rational: the brothers had murdered their parents to get their hands on their father’s millions. They had plotted the murders carefully, covering their tracks so that it would look as though Jose and Kitty Menendez had been murdered in a violent housebreaking incident. However, directly after the horrific murders, the brothers came into their inheritance and began a spending spree that alerted the police. The pair was brought to trial and, despite the defence’s attempts to argue that Jose Menendez had sexually abused his sons, and that they had killed in self-defence, they were both convicted of first-degree murder.

What came to light at the trial was that, although the Menendez parents had probably not sexually abused their children, they had brought them up in such a way that the boys were unable to function normally in the world, either emotionally or morally. From their earliest years, they had subjected them to tremendous pressures to achieve, and thereby not allowed them to develop their own abilities and identities. They taught them that cheating, lying and stealing was the best way to get on in the world. Jose Menendez had groomed his sons – especially his elder son, Lyle – to be as grasping, ruthless and amoral as he was, thinking that in this way they would achieve success in the business world. Unfortunately, his sons learned his values all too well – only they turned against their parents, plotting the perfect murder of their father and mother so as to inherit a fortune.

A Ruthless Businessman

Jose Menendez was an immigrant from Cuba, who had left his homeland after Castro came to power, and had started life in the US with very little financial or family support. Through sheer hard work and determination, he had risen to become a top executive, working in a series of high-profile positions at large companies such as Hertz and RCA. In the process, he had become rich, and had gained the respect of his anglo colleagues. However, he had also made many enemies during his career, and had gained a reputation for treating his employees with contempt. He was also widely distrusted for his questionable ethics, for instance making sales figures appear better than they were by a variety of dishonest means. By the time of his death, Menendez was an extremely successful businessman; but he was not a popular one.

Family life in the Menendez home was also less rosy than it may at first have appeared. Although the family were very well-off, Kitty Menendez was not a happy woman. Her husband engaged in a series of affairs, and at home he was an oppressive presence. Kitty was depressed and angry, and she resorted to alcohol and drug abuse, often going through periods of suicidal depression. The Menendez sons also had many problems. From their earliest childhood, Jose had pushed them, overseeing every detail of their lives and making them report to him on what they did at every moment during the day. The children developed psychological problems, and began to show physical signs of stress such as bed-wetting, stomach pains and stutters. They were also both aggressive and anti-social.

Robbery And Violence

Not only did Jose and Kitty pressurize their children at home, they also refused to accept that they were anything but brilliant at school. Neither child showed much academic talent, yet their parents insisted that they should excel. Jose harboured an ambition for Lyle to attend an Ivy League College as he himself had never had the opportunity to go to one. One result of this was that Kitty began to do the children’s homework for them, making sure that they got high grades, and at the same time teaching them that it was acceptable to cheat in order to succeed. Later, when Lyle did in fact manage to get to Princeton – mainly because of his skill at tennis – he was suspended for a year for plagiarism.

By the time Lyle and Erik were teenagers, their behaviour had spiralled out of control. They had taken to robbing their neighbours, stealing cash and jewellery, and had been arrested for the crimes. Jose had intervened and managed to pay off the authorities. Used to being protected by their parents, the boys seemed to have no conception that what they had done was wrong, and continued their arrogant, violent behaviour both at home and in the outside world. Kitty had become frightened of them, and had taken to sleeping with guns in her bedroom.

Bodies Riddled With Bullets

As it turned out, she was right to be frightened. The brothers eventually turned on their own parents one night, gunning them down in cold blood. They repeatedly shot their father, and then their mother, at one point running out to their car to fetch more ammunition so that they could finish off the job. Afterwards, when the bodies were riddled with bullets and covered in blood, the brothers telephoned for help. When police arrived on the scene, they told them that they had discovered the bodies when they came home that night. They were believed, yet those who knew the family had their suspicions.

It was not long before Lyle and Erik began to throw their parents’ money around. They took rooms in luxury hotels, rented expensive apartments, and spent huge amounts on cars, clothes, and jewellery. Lyle tried to go into business, setting up a chain of restaurants, but it soon became clear that he did not have the remotest idea of what he was doing. Erik decided to become a professional tennis player, but he too seemed to be living in a fantasy land.

Soon, the pressure became too much for Erik and he confessed his part in the murders to his therapist, Jerome Oziel. Furious at this, Lyle threatened Oziel, but Oziel did not report him to the police. Later, Oziel’s testimony was used at the trial.

The complications of the case meant that the preparation for the trial dragged on for three years, during which time the brothers were held in custody. However, the evidence against them was eventually found to be overwhelming, and they were both sentenced to life in prison.

The Skid Row Murders

When Juan Corona was convicted of twenty-five murders in January 1973, he entered the history books as the most prolific serial killer in US history. Since then, however, his grisly record has been overtaken and Corona’s name has become nearly as obscure as the man himself.

Successful Immigrant

Juan Corona was born in Mexico in 1934. Like many thousands of his compatriots he moved north to California to find work in the 1950s. Compared to most of his fellow Mexican immigrants he did well. Over the years he put down roots, married and had four children, establishing his own farm in Yuba City, just outside Sacramento in northern California. He specialized in providing labour for other farmers and ranchers in the area. The migrants would wait in lines in the early morning, and Corona would show up in a truck offering work.

It was a hard but settled life and it was only briefly disturbed when, in 1970, there was a violent incident at the cafe owned by Corona’s gay brother Natividad. A young Mexican was savaged with a machete. The young man accused Natividad of being the attacker. Natividad promptly fled back to Mexico, and the case was soon forgotten.

Forgotten, that is, until the following year when, on 19 May 1971, one of Juan Corona’s neighbours, a Japanese-American farmer who had hired some workers from Corona, noticed a hole that had been dug on his land. Suspicious, he asked police to investigate. On excavating the hole they found a body, which proved to be that of a drifter called Kenneth Whitacre. Whitacre had been stabbed in the chest and his head almost split in two by blows from a machete or similar cleaving instrument. Gay literature was found on the body, leading the police to suspect a sexual motive.

Four days later, workers on a nearby ranch discovered a second body, a drifter called Charles Fleming. At this point, the police started searching the area in earnest. Over the next nine days they discovered a total of twenty-five bodies, mostly in an orchard on Corona’s land. They had all been killed by knives or machetes: a deep stab wound to the chest and two gashes across the back of the head in the shape of a cross. In some, but not all, cases there was evidence of homosexual activity.