Real Evil: The Torture Gang

I'm reading a 60s Sexton Blake novel that has a gangster who nails his victims' knees to the floor with six inch nails.  I was reminded of Monty Python's Piranha Brothers sketch:




I figured that must have been a Kray Brothers thing, but it turns out it was their rival the Richardson Gang, also called the Torture Gang, who would also cut off toes with bolt cutters and pull teeth with pliers.  One collector caught skimming spent two days nailed to a warehouse floor while his associates would occasionally take a piss on him.

Real Evil - "Ghost" Rapists of Bolivia

In Bolivia, in Manitoba Colony, there is a group of Mennonites (similar to Amish), who reported several attacks on women between 2005 and 2009.  The women were attacked in their sleep, with only hazy dreams instead of memories.  Originally the rapes were blamed on imagination, ghosts, and demons, despite physical evidence left behind.

Eventually, a gang of Mennonite men were arrested and convicted of the attacks.  They used an anesthetizing spray obtained from a veterinarian and sprayed their victim's houses to knock out entire families before attacking - shades of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon.

More from Vice

Real Evil - Boone Helm the Kentucky Cannibal

Born in 1828, Boone Helm headed for California in 1850 as part of the gold rush, killing his cousin before leaving.  Helm was briefly institutionalized in an asylum before escaping.  He moved around the country, robbing and killing people, occasionally teaming up with other fugitives on the run and eating them when rations were low.  Once he ate a dead companion's leg, then wrapped up and took the other one for the road.

Helm was caught and executed by vigilantes in Montana in 1864, proclaiming: "Every man for his principles! Hurrah for Jeff Davis! Let 'er rip!"

More at Legends of America and Wikipedia.

Real Evil - The Wreck of the Batavia

The Wreck of the Batavia

In 1628, disgraced pharmacist and possible libertine heretic Jeronimus Cornelisz plotted a mutiny with skipper Ariaen Jacobsz while on a long voyage aboard the Batavia, commissioned by the Dutch East India Company on a trip to the Dutch East Indies.  The plot involved having the crew molest a high ranking female passenger, knowing that the Captain would overreact in disciplining the crew

Before their plans could be realized, the ship struck a reef off the coast of Western Australia.  The Captain Francisco Pelsaert took a small crew in the ships only boat on a perilous 33 day trip for help.

Cornelisz was placed in charge of the rest of the survivors, and soon found there was not enough food or water to sustain the over 200 survivors.  Cornelisz sorted out who he believed would support him, and who would oppose his plans.  The opposition was sent to other islands, ostensibly to look for fresh water, but in reality they were sent to their deaths.  Meanwhile, it was believed that Cornelisz intended to create his own kingdom on the islands with himself as ultimate ruler.

Cornelisz set about murdering the survivors to reduce the strain on resources.  At first they were quietly drowned, but as time went on they were killed in more blatant and brutal fashion.  Cornelisz' henchmen received better rations and privileges as a reward for the murders, and soon they racking up a huge body count.  Children were particular targets, as were pregnant women.  The rest of the females subjected to sexual slavery.  Under orders, a father strangled his own six year old child.  A priest's children were killed in front of him.

Meanwhile, the survivors that were sent to die on other islands, led by common soldier Weibbe Hays, found a supply of fresh water and lived in relative comfort and security.  The two groups eventually went to war with improvised weapons, with Cornelisz' faction ultimately losing and Cornelisz being held captive in a lime pit.

When the survivors were finally rescued, Cornelisz and his closest henchmen were tried and executed on the island.  They were hung after their hands were amputated with a hammer and chisel.

Shipwreck survivors being sorted into groups, Utopian madmen, it all reminds me of a TV series before it ran aground in its last season.  But enough about Heroes.

Real Evil - The Handcuff Man

Real Evil - The Handcuff Man

Serial killers get all the attention, but there are other strange serial criminals worth a look at.  Like serial groin arsonist the Handcuff Man.

From around 1968 to 1991, the Handcuff Man approached male prostitutes and hustlers and offered to pay them to take a drink, often saying it was part of a medical study.  The drinks were drugged, and the victims would wake up handcuffed with their laps on fire.  The total number victims is unknown, as he targeted a population afraid to go to the police.

More info at the excellent Crime Library.