|
Science is Shedding New Light on Old Crimes
 What is it about New Year’s Day that feels like a prime day to watch horror movies or to indulge in some darker conversation? Maybe we’ve just all had our fill of Christmas specials. I remember it was a New Year’s Day when I first heard the story of the 1880s-90s serial killer Belle Gunness of La Porte, Indiana. Little did I know at the time, but a decade later, I’d end up interviewing the author who wrote the definitive book on that mystery (if you’re up for a dark conversation, check out my conversation with Harold Schechter here: https://tinyurl.com/y5bvy7gt)
This year, I woke up on New Year’s Day to competing marathons of The Twilight Zone & Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Meanwhile, the documentary channel was taking a look back at Charles Manson’s impact on the music industry (definitely worth a look, “Manson: Music from an Unsound Mind” – 2019). That was followed by a special about a historical mass murder event on a tiny Western Australia island, for which I’ll get into deeper detail about below.
One of the things that excites me most about the paranormal is the idea that perhaps paranormal investigation or even just accidentally witnessing a residual haunting, might provide enough of a clue to help solve a mystery. Maybe that mystery is just a lost historical footnote, but maybe it will solve a crime, even a murder. In “Voices from the Chicago Grave,” I wrote about that hope relating to the residual Haunts at the site where the Grimes sisters bodies were recovered. Along with Max Timm & Connor Bright, I visited sites across Los Angeles & Hollywood associated with the Elizabeth Short (Black Dahlia) murder with the hope to find an interesting EVP that might prove illuminating. We didn't have any such luck, but I feel the concept is still worth exploring.
 And on that note, my wife, Wendy, and I finally watched “The Irishman.” (Spoiler Alert: it doesn’t end well for Jimmy Hoffa, pictured right). In the movie, they claim Hoffa was killed at house in a Western Detroit suburb. Today, the house is still standing and available as a rental property. Have people attempted paranormal investigations here? More recent criminal investigations have found blood residue that seem to support the theory, so something violent did happen here, but was it intense enough to leave a residual haunting? For that matter, has there been a paranormal observation at any of the sites that are suspected to be the location of Hoffa’s final breaths or burial locations?
In the meantime, there’s been some more traditional science, archaeology & tech that has lead to some interesting breaking news stories associated with historical cases. Here are three stories worth following, listed in order of the date of the original crime. (Zodiac code cracked, Wild West Outlaw's body discovered in Idaho cave, several 400 year-old Murder victims found on Australian Island) Click this link to read the full article, free.
|
