May 30: Natalee Holloway vanishes from Aruba
Plus: Louisiana serial killer attacks jogger, the Gay Slayer strikes again, and more.
Welcome to the final Thursday edition of Today in True Crime. After this week, we’ll send occasional updates and true crime newspaper clippings through history, and let readers know when we have new stories on our website, True Crime Time.
1985: Two sets of bones discovered—six years after two teenagers disappear
It was the summer of 1979, and two teenagers had gone to see “The Amityville Horror” at a drive-in movie theater in Akron, Ohio. But then they encountered a horror of their own.
Nineteen-year-old Richard Beard and 17-year-old Mary Leonard went missing around midnight that night. Their vanishing kicked off a massive search involving bloodhounds and Ohio’s national guard.
Beard’s car was found with 17 marijuana cigarette butts in the ashtray, 1.5 pills of meth in the glove compartment, and a bullet hole in the windshield. Leonard’s parents kept her room untouched, hoping that one day she’d walk through the door.
Six years later, two sets of bones were found in the woods. One of the bones had a bullet hole through it—it was Beard’s right shoulder blade, as investigators soon discovered.
Leonard’s skeleton showed signs that she’d been stabbed in the ribs. The bodies hadn’t been buried, it seemed—merely laid out on the ground, to decompose in the lonely woods for years.
Explore More
Read: May 30, 1985: Bones believed to be missing teens. 2 skulls found at site, Akron Beacon Journal
Listen: 1979: Waiting for justice - Beard and Leonard, Ohio Mysteries
Watch: Who killed Ricky Beard and Mary Leonard in 1979 in Akron?, Akron Beacon Journal
1993: Deranged serial killer strangles a quiet librarian
Christopher Dunn, 37, was a soft-spoken British librarian who loved his garden—and enjoyed a bout of sadomasochism when the right partner came along. And so when he was found in his home, wearing a harness and studded belt, police assumed that he’d accidentally died during sex.
But then someone called the police, refusing to identify himself, and asked them why they didn’t look more closely at Dunn’s body.
That closer look revealed a darker truth: Dunn had been strangled.
He’d been tortured, too. When he agreed to bring a man named Colin Ireland home from a gay pub, he had no idea he was inviting a serial killer into his beloved cottage.
But Ireland had already killed once, and was planning to kill again. He handcuffed Dunn and tied him up, then tortured him with a lighter and a belt and eventually strangled him to death with a cord.
For this, and four other murders of gay men, Ireland was given five life sentences.
Explore More
Read: The Gay Slayer: The Life of Serial Killer Colin Ireland, Fergus Mason
Listen: The murders of Colin Ireland: The Gay Slayer, Mens Rea: A true crime podcast
Watch: Colin Ireland: The Gay Slayer, True Crime Central
1999: Another serial killer stalks and kills a Louisiana runner
Hardee Schmidt was a marathon runner, and was accustomed to early mornings. It wasn’t unusual for her to wake up and run for five or ten miles through Baton Rouge, often returning home mid-run to grab her water bottle and towel. In fact, it was that same water bottle and towel that clued her husband into the fact that something was wrong.
On May 30, she left around 5 a.m. for her run, but when her husband woke at 9 and saw that the water and towel were untouched, he grew worried.
A week later, a bicyclist found Schmidt—floating face-down in a drainage canal. At first, police refused to tell the public how she died. “All I can say right now is that she went through hell,” said a sergeant.
It wasn’t until 2004 that her killer was arrested. She’d been stalked by serial killer Sean Vincent Gillis, who had driven around Schmidt’s neighborhood for three weeks until he found her.
Once he spotted her out on her early morning run, he hit her with his car, got out, forced her into his car, raped her, killed her, and left her in the trunk of his car for two days before throwing her into the canal.
Sometimes, Gillis told a friend later, he didn’t even know why he killed people.
Explore More
Read: Where Is Sean Vincent Gillis Now?, A&E
Listen: Sean Vincent Gillis, True Crime All The Time
Watch: Living With A Serial Killer: The Disturbing Case of Sean Vincent Gillis, Law&Crime Network
2005: Natalee Holloway vanishes from Aruba vacation
It’s one of the most famous missing person cases in the world: the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. She was a pretty blonde 18-year-old American who was celebrating her high school graduation with a trip to Aruba. And what happened to her was, for almost two decades, a mystery.
On the last night she was seen, she was partying at a club called Carlos 'N Charlie's. She got into a gray Honda with a gaggle of local boys, including a 17-year-old who would end up being one of the key players in her tragedy: a Dutchman named Joran van der Sloot.
Van der Sloot originally claimed he took Holloway back to her hotel, but security cameras proved him wrong—she never returned. He was arrested twice in connection with her disappearance and murder, but released both times.
Over the years, he provided frustratingly inconsistent stories to the media and to Holloway’s own family. And then in 2010, he killed a young woman in Peru, and was arrested for it.
Finally, in 2023, after being entangled in the arms of multiple countries’ justice systems for long enough, he confessed: he had killed Natalee with a kick to the head and a cement brick after she refused his advances on the beach. Then he pushed her body into the water—and she was never seen again.
Explore More
Read: Missing White Female, Vanity Fair
Listen: Case 141: Natalee Holloway, Casefile True Crime
Watch: Joran van der Sloot Confesses to Natalee Holloway’s Murder, Inside Edition
From the Headlines
Revealed: How 6-day search of Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect’s family home zeroed in on basement, The Independent
Florida murder trial put innocent teen in prison. Then came DNA, Tampa Bay Times
San Diego TikToker Ali Abulaban found guilty of murdering wife, friend, NBC San Diego
Lord Lucan ‘asked friends to cover up murder of his children’s nanny’, The Telegraph
France’s cold case unit orders new DNA tests in unsolved Alps murders, The Guardian
Des Moines teen missing for over a year, last believed to be in Mexico, FOX 13 Seattle
Jury deliberates in case of Chad Daybell, accused of murder in 3 deaths, CBS News
Family of missing West Australian Zane Stevens demand answers over 21-year-old's disappearance, Australian Broadcasting Company
What to Read & Stream
The Best True Crime to Stream: Digital Dating and Coercive Control, The New York Times
Expand Your Mind with These Psychedelic Mysteries, CrimeReads
Under the Bridge’s Creators Knew They Had to Become Part of the Tragedy, Slate
10 Thrilling True-Crime Documentary Series To Watch After The Jinx, Screen Rant
New documentary detailing the Burger Chef Murders comes out in June. Watch the trailer., IndyStar
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