Murders and Death

For many years, debates took place on what could’ve possibly happened. The most popular theory was some sort of band of people had attacked them. It was also thought that some of the injuries could have been caused by torture. The Russian government decided to reopen the case in 2019 some 60 years later. The government came out with a statement recently saying the case has been solved, but I believe there will be some people who will never accept the conclusion they came to. The Russians claim the students died because they were caught in an avalanche. It doesn’t seem to me some of the injuries cited, such as the loss of a tongue and eyes missing from bodies lend themselves to this conclusion. I’m sure conspiracy advocates will have a ball with this one.

Not all mysterious deaths have to do with humans. Botswana has a mystery on its hands which involves deaths, it is the deaths of elephants. Since the beginning of May, 2020 over 350 elephants have died and nobody can figure out why. Experts were flying all over the countryside and noticed the bodies of 169 dead elephants, so they alerted the government. The elephants are still dying. About the only thing they can be sure of is, is not from the drought. A doctor said it could not be from poison because if it was other animals would also have died, and they haven’t. At this point doctors have said even though this is true they haven’t ruled out poison or disease. I guess we will have to wait and see what tests show in the future.

Jonathan Luna was a federal prosecutor. He was a family man and was married to a doctor and had two young sons. He lived 14 miles from Baltimore where his office was located. He was in the middle of a trial which was a little unique, because the defendants were accused of running a drug operation out of a radio station. He was working on a plea deal with the defense attorneys which would be presented the next day. Later in the day he called one of the defense attorneys and told them he had worked on the plea in his office and had to go home. He never made it. The next day an employee of a drilling company was headed into a remote area when he noticed something strange. It looked like a red light so he headed for it and there was an automobile teetering on the edge of a small cliff. He could see blood on the driver’s seat, but no driver was in the car. When the police arrived, they noticed a lot of blood in the backseat and on the fender and door. The engine of the car was still running, but there was no indication of an auto accident. As the police searched the area, they spotted the body. It had been stabbed 36 times. The crime has never been solved.

Kent Heithol worked as an editor of the Colombian Daily Tribune in Missouri. The poor guy was murdered in the parking lot for the building he worked in. He was the sports editor for the newspaper. For a while it seemed the murderer had been caught. A man had been convicted for the murder, but was released eight years later when authorities agreed two witnesses had been pressured to testify he was the murderer. There is still a page on Facebook dedicated to Kent Heithol, where people are looking for justice in this case.

Chandra Leavy was interning for the US Bureau of Prisons when she didn’t report to work one day. Her body was found a year later in a decomposed state in Rock Creek Park in Washington. The coroner, was unable to figure out the cause of death. He did say however it was a homicide. The police speculated it could’ve been a man named Gary Condit who murdered her. He was a California congressman, but he was cleared. Next an illegal alien was arrested and charged and he was even convicted but the conviction was overturned on appeal because all the evidence was tainted which came from a jailhouse informant. A trial had been ordered, but prosecutors dropped the charges. They decided to have the illegal alien deported instead.

A hip-hop performer named Jam Master Jay was part of Run-D.M.C. was gunned down in his recording studio in Jamaica, Queens, New York, in 2002. After investigating his murder, police decided to investigate a convicted drug dealer who had ties to Murder Incorpporated founder’s Irving Lorenzo and his brother. Nothing came of that. In 2007 federal prosecutors named a man as being an accomplice in the murder who was also a suspect in a second murder. The man was never convicted.

Some murders are even more tragic than others, and murders of children are especially horrendous. Molly Bish was a 16-year-old girl who lived in Massachusetts. She was working as a lifeguard in her hometown. She disappeared on June 27, 2000. It was said Molly’s mother thought she saw a suspicious man in the car the day before when she dropped Molly off at her job. She checked the parking lot the next day but there was no sign of the man, but later a witness said she had seen a man that fit the description about 10 minutes before. A worker also said he had saw a car that fit the description of the car the man was said to be in. When Molly disappeared, the largest manhunt ever conducted in Massachusetts took place. In 2002 a hunter reported seeing a blue bathing suit in the woods and the police conducted a search and in 2003 found Molly’s body. Several suspects were cleared over the years and nobody has ever been convicted of the murder.