18 classic true crime cases from around the world, including;
Best Friends Forever:Two 16-year-old girls decide to get rid of an unwanted friend in this barely believable tale of teenaged friendship gone horribly wrong.
Irresistible Impulse: A troubled young woman finds the burden of caring for her five children too much to bear. Her solution to the problem will shock you to the core.
Guilty of Suicide: Can a man really be put to death when even the prosecution agrees that his victim probably took her own life?
Countess Dracula: The quite incredible tale of a Hungarian countess who enjoyed taking long baths … in her victims’ blood.
The Axe Man Cometh: A young man with money problems decides to claim his inheritance early, via familial slaughter.
Night of the Slasher: A killer is loose on the streets of Windsor, Ontario, his savage M.O. drawing comparisons with Jack the Ripper.
Don’t Talk to Strangers: The Hasidic Jewish community of Borough Park, New York looked after their own and kept strangers out. But what if one of their own was a depraved child killer?
Click the "Read More" link below to read the first chapter of
Murder Most Vile Volume Eleven
No Remorse
Few murders have touched the heart of the Australian nation as much as
that of Ebony Simpson. Ebony was a pretty 9-year-old, living a happy life in
the town of Bargo, just outside of Sydney, with her parents and two brothers.
It was a safe environment in which to raise a child, a place where few of the
3,000 inhabitants even bothered locking their doors at night. But
unfortunately, no place on earth is safe from a determined predator and when
Ebony alighted from her school bus on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 19,
1992, just such a creature was watching.
It was pleasantly warm on that late winter afternoon, with a gentle
breeze that ruffled Ebony’s hair as she stepped from the bus at the corner of
Bargo and Arina Roads. This was her usual stop and on this day she was the only
one that took it. Not that that bothered her in any way. Her route home was a
straight 400-yard stroll down Arina Street. She’d walked it a hundred times
before. Barely paying attention to the familiar surroundings, she began walking,
her blonde ponytail bouncing gently against the schoolbag on her back with each
step.
But not all was normal along the familiar stretch of road on that
particular day. There was a light-colored car pulled over to the sidewalk with
both its hood and trunk flipped open. A long-haired man stood bent over the
engine, his brow furrowed into a frown, fingers caressing his stubbled chin in
a contemplative pose. Ebony noticed him, of course, but averted her eyes and
hoped that the man wouldn’t try to talk to her. Quite obviously, he had car
trouble but her parents had instructed her never to talk to strangers. Aside
from that, there was the “Stranger Danger” program they were being taught at
school. The rules were explicit – don’t talk to strangers; don’t get into a
stranger's car; don’t take anything offered to you. And so Ebony stepped up the
pace and looked straight ahead as she walked. She was passing the car now, a
few more steps and it would be behind her, a few dozen more and she’d be home
where a cool drink and a sandwich awaited her. That was when the man reached
out and grabbed her.
Ebony was caught totally by surprise. One moment she was walking
along, the next she was plucked into the air, a rough hand clamped over her
mouth. Then, she was dumped roughly into the trunk of the car and the lid was
slammed shut enveloping her instantly in darkness. Moments later, she heard the
engine roar into life and the car lurched forward. Now she found her voice,
screaming and thumping with her fists against the inside of the trunk, begging
to be let out. It did no good. The lid held firm and no one was around to hear
her cries for help. The abductor had chosen his route carefully. The roads he
now traveled were all but deserted.
Ebony Simpson had just fallen into the hands of a sexual psychopath
named Andrew Garforth, who had only recently moved to Bargo from Western
Australia. Unbeknownst to her, he’d been watching her for a while, just waiting
on his moment. Now, as he raced his car along a dirt road towards a remote
reservoir near the Wirrimbirra Sanctuary, Garforth could hardly contain his
excitement. He’d done it, carried out his plan to perfection, plucked the girl
right off the street without a soul there to stop him. Now she was in his
power.
A glint of sunlight off water told him that his destination was near.
He slowed the vehicle, bringing it to a crawl, then to a stop, just a few yards
from the water’s edge. The girl had stopped screaming now, not that it bothered
him either way. He got out of the car, walked around to the back and flipped
the trunk. Ebony Simpson was dragged, terrified and crying, into the
light.
Garforth had rehearsed this moment many times in his mind. The tears
and the begging, the pleas to be let go, had been expected. They didn’t bother
him. In fact, they only served to heighten his excitement. He shushed her now,
told her that it would all be okay if she did what she was told. His first
instruction was for her to put her hands behind her back. That done, he bound
her hands with a length of electrical cord he’d brought along for that purpose.
The child now entirely under his control, Garforth dragged her to the
ground, ripped at her clothes and raped her on the dusty ground. He’d repeat
that act several more times over the hours that followed, feeding like a
scavenger on the little girl’s hysterical cries, her pleas for mercy, her
screams of pain. Finally, his vile lust sated, he rolled away from her. He’d
already destroyed Ebony’s young life. Now he was about to snuff it out
completely.
It is hard to conceive of a person stooping to a greater depth of
depravity than what Garforth had already achieved. But the heartless psychopath
had thought this through at great length and the plan he’d concocted was evil
in its purest form. First, he gathered up a pile of rocks and began filling
Ebony’s schoolbag with them. Then he tied her feet together and strapped the
weighted bag to her back. Finally, he threw the helpless girl into the water,
watched for a moment as she thrashed around, and then turned and walked away as
she sunk to the depths. He drove away even as Ebony Simpson’s lungs filled with
water and her life was snuffed out. Later that night, he’d sit down to dinner
with his wife and two young sons.
Ebony Simpson was reported missing that night and by the next morning,
the news was everywhere. A child had disappeared. Police and emergency services
launched a massive search with most of the town’s residents mobilizing to help.
One of those who volunteered for the search party was Andrew Garforth.
While that search was ongoing, detectives were trying to trace the
movements of the missing girl. It was soon apparent that Ebony had disappeared
along the short stretch of road between the bus stop and her front door.
Several people, including the bus driver, testified that she’d definitely
gotten off the bus at her usual stop. One witness added another important
detail. He said that he’d seen a light-colored Mazda 808 sedan parked near the
bus stop with its hood up.
The description of that vehicle caused the detectives to sit up and
pay attention. They’d heard this car described before. In fact, teachers at the
local school had reported several times that a man driving just such a vehicle
had been lurking around the schoolyard. The same vehicle had been seen
following school buses on their routes. This was a promising lead, so the
investigators went back to the original complaints and pulled a description of
the suspect. He was said to be about 5-foot-8, thin, and with shoulder-length,
dirty blonde hair. It wasn’t much to go on until police pulled over a vehicle
matching the description of the one seen near the abduction site. Behind the
wheel was Andrew Garforth, who matched the physical description of the suspect
almost exactly.
Garforth was taken into custody and quickly offered up a fanciful
story. He admitted abducting Ebony but said that by the time he reached the
reservoir, he’d had a change of heart and decided to let her go. He’d then
driven off and left her behind. Later, when he’d heard that she was still
missing, he’d assumed that she’d fallen into the water and drowned.
How Garforth ever thought that this absurd story would fly, is a
mystery. On Friday, August 21, 1992, he was driven to the reservoir and
instructed to point out the spot where he’d left Ebony. There, within feet of
the shoreline, the police recovered Ebony Simpson’s body, still weighed down by
its bagful of rocks. Later, at the police station, Garforth eventually came
clean, describing with no emotion whatever how he’d abducted, raped, and
drowned the little girl.
“She shouted for help as I walked away,” he said. “When I left she was
trying to get back to the bank. I believed she could have possibly drowned or
maybe made it to safety.” It was a pathetic attempt to justify a horrendously
cruel act.
Later that day, Garforth was taken to the Picton Courthouse where he
was charged with the murder of Ebony Simpson. A large crowd had gathered while
Garforth was being arraigned and he was forced to run the gauntlet of enraged
local residents when he left the court. He’d later plead guilty at his July
1993 trial, receiving a life sentence with the judge stipulating that he should
never be released.
Garforth has remained a controversial figure behind bars. As a child
killer and rapist, he is universally despised by other prisoners and has
suffered a number of attacks. His response was to lodge a claim, via his
lawyer, for victim’s compensation, although this was later withdrawn after
public outrage.
Then, in July 2015, Garforth was in the news again when it was
revealed that his prisoner status had been downgraded by the Serious Offenders
Review Council, entitling him to a number of new freedoms and privileges. That
decision had barely been announced when Corrective Services Minister David
Elliott stepped in to quash it.
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