Number 7 Lynda and Wayne Rickard
In 2021, Lynda Rickard was sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum of 28 years served,
in connection with the death of her millionaire landlord. Rickard and her husband Wayne,
who was also sentenced to 10 years and 6 months, had been the live-in tenants of Anthony Sootheran,
at High Havens Farm, in Oxfordshire, England. As his care giver, Rickard essentially starved the
reclusive millionaire to death in a plot to inherit his estate. In March of 2014,
his severely emaciated body was found in his room and it was determined he’d died from a
lung infection brought about by a combination of malnutrition and a deep-seated pressure sore. The
death was not treated as suspicious, at first, but the investigation was re-opened because his bank
account was used after his passing. Leading up to Sootheran’s demise Rickard had forged his will and
systematically isolated him from family members, including his daughter Hannah. She’d also forged
the will of his mother, Joy, who’d died in 2012. She stole over $400,000 from both their accounts
and her utter disregard for Sootheran’s basic needs had resulted in what the presiding judge
described as the “most horrible of deaths”. Number 6 Maria Malveiro and Mariana Fonseca
In March of 2020, a human torso and several other body parts were found washed ashore in different
areas of the Algarve, Portugal’s southernmost region. The remains were later confirmed as those
of 21-year-old Diogo Gonçalves. Local police followed the evidence and arrived at couple
Maria Malveiro and Mariana Fonseca, aged 19 and 23 respectively, as the main suspects.
Gonçalves had recently inherited $77,000 which is why Malveiro and her girlfriend had targeted him.
On March the 18th, the former seduced Gonçalves and promised him a lap dance at his home. It was
there that Malveiro gave him orange juice laced with sedatives provided by Fonseca, who worked
as a nurse at Lagos Hospital. Their plan was to restrain him and access his bank account.
At some point, however, Gonçalves regained consciousness and Malveiro put him in a headlock
until he passed out. Fonseca, who’d been waiting in the car, walked in and successfully revived him
but Malveiro resumed her attack and fatally suffocated Gonçalves. The couple then chopped off
his fingers and used the prints to access his bank account from his cellphone. After transferring the
funds, Malveiro stole a cleaver from a supermarket and the women dismembered his body. They waited
24 hours before first getting rid of his torso and, in the following days, scattered his head,
forearms, hands and feet into the sea from cliffs in the area. The women subsequently claimed that
the dismemberment was inspired by the American TV series “Dexter”. Between March the 20th and the
23rd they maintained his Facebook page active so that friends and family would think he was
still alive. In the spring of 2021, Malveiro was sentenced to the maximum of 25 years in jail.
It was argued that Fonseca’s attempt to revive Gonçalves had absolved her of his murder and
she was given a suspended sentence of 4 years for desecration of a corpse, theft and fraud.
Number 5 Rich Schmelzer In 2017, a Texas man was sentenced to
45 years in prison for murdering his grandmother in an effort to gain access to his inheritance.
It was effectively a life sentence for 44-year-old Rich Schmelzer who, in July of 2014,
had travelled to the East Dundee, Illinois, home of Mildred “Dodie” Darrington, aged 85,
and stabbed her to death. Schmelzer led a lavish lifestyle that included female escorts, among
others, and had considerably fallen back on his mortgage. Other family members refused to lend any
more money to the father-of-four who then sought to expedite his $400,000 share of Darrington’s
estate. He told his wife that he was going to a conference in Dallas and rented a car to make
the 14-hour drive from Frisco, Texas, to East Dundee. It was there that Schmelzer snuck inside
his elderly grandmother’s home and fatally stabbed her in the neck. Even though he’d covered trip
expenses with a prepaid gift card and the rented car had been paid for by his cousin, Schmelzer
left enough evidence for the killing to be traced back to him and he was arrested a month later.
Number 4 Murder of Jacob Henry Millison On May the 16th of 2015, Jacob Henry Millison,
aged 29, was fatally shot in his sleep at a ranch in Parlin, Gunnison County,
Colorado. To the rest of the world, however, he was reported as missing. Millison and his sister,
Stephanie, had grown up on a 700-acre ranch that belonged to Rudy Rudibaugh,
their mother Deborah’s second husband. When Rudy died, in 2009, he left Stephanie and her husband,
David Jackson, money to buy a new home in Denver while it was understood that the ranch would
pass on to Millison. The $3 million property would become an object of contention among the siblings,
their mother and Jackson. Millison feared that his sister and her husband were trying to take
the ranch away from him. In 2017, two years after he was shot to death, an individual,
who would become a police informant, arrived to the ranch as the family had dug up what
looked like human skeletal remains from a manure pit. They were later confirmed as Millison’s.
His mother would plead guilty to second-degree murder claiming she alone had gone into his room,
shot him with her Smith & Wesson "Lady Smith" .357 caliber revolver and then buried the body. She
described him as a drug addict and alcoholic, claims that were disputed by his friends,
also adding that she’d grown weary of him living with her. The police immediately doubted Deborah’s
confession. Stephanie and her husband were also arrested as they had most to gain from Millison’s
death. It was subsequently determined that, at the very least, they’d pressured Deborah into
shooting her son and then helped her dispose of the remains. Cellphone records showed that, in
spite of Deborah’s claims, the couple was in the county at the time of the killing and a deleted
text message from Stephanie’s cellphone, sent at 3:17 on the night, read “It’s time to play!”
Ultimately, Deborah was given a 40-year sentence and died in prison, while Stephanie and Jackson
were sentenced to 24 and 10 years respectively. Number 3 Sarah Stern
New Jersey teenager Sarah Stern was last seen on December the 2nd of 2016 and, in the days
that followed, her car was found abandoned on a bridge in Belmar. The 19-year-old’s body was never
recovered and the scene initially suggested that she’d taken her own life. However, the ensuing
investigation revealed that Stern had been robbed and strangled to death by her former high school
classmate, Liam McAtasney. In the aftermath of her disappearance, amateur filmmaker Anthony Curry
contacted the authorities claiming that McAtasney had revealed to him that he’d killed Stern. The
motive had been money she’d inherited from her mother, who’d died of breast cancer in 2013.
The authorities and Curry, who was McAtasney’s trusted friend, then set up a sting operation in
which the filmmaker secretly recorded the killer’s confession with a hidden camera. In the recording,
which was instrumental in securing a conviction, McAtasney said that it had taken him about half
an hour to kill Stern. He went on to mention that “the worst part” was that he’d expected
to walk away with $50,000 to $100,000, which the young woman kept in a safe, but found that Stern
had less than $10,000. He then enlisted the help of his former roommate Preston Taylor,
who’d also been the victim’s prom date, to dispose of her body by throwing it from the bridge. Both
men were arrested and Taylor collaborated with investigators in securing further evidence
against McAtasney. The killer was sentenced to life without parole for first-degree murder,
conspiracy, desecrating human remains, tampering with evidence and other charges. Taylor, as an
accomplice, was given a prison term of 18 years. Today's topic was requested by Instagram follower
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Number 2 Brendan Lee Johnson and Cassandra Ann Rieb
In 2014, a Colorado teen murdered his grandparents, with the help of his girlfriend, to
hasten his inheritance which consisted of a small house and $20,000. In May, 19-year-old Brendan Lee
Johnson and Cassandra Ann Rieb, aged 18, snuck into the Sterling home of Charles and Shirley
Severance, both in their early 70s. They’d planned to smother the elderly couple with pillows,
as they slept. They crept inside, in the early hours of the morning, but found Charles awake.
Johnson fought his grandfather who’s believed to have succumbed to a heart attack during the
struggle. Shirley reportedly asked "Why are you doing this to me?" before the couple attacked
her. The grandmother offered the combination to the safe and, as she was trying to open it,
Johnson stabbed her to death with a kitchen knife. The teenage couple tried to cover their tracks by
burning Shirley’s body in a fire pit near Sterling and scattering some of the remains in Nebraska
as well. They couldn’t do the same to Charles, as the body was too heavy, and called the authorities
claiming they’d found him dead. The authorities faced little difficulty in identifying them as
the killers and they both confessed following their arrests. The couple entered guilty pleas,
to avoid the death penalty, in which Johnson was sentenced to life without parole while Rieb
was given a sentence of 80 years. Number 1 O’Sullivan Family
In October of 2020, an inheritance dispute resulted in what a coroner described as
"a terrible tragedy, almost beyond human comprehension" at a farmhouse in Assolas,
outside Kanturk, Ireland. It involved 59-year-old Tadg O’Sullivan and his wife, Anne,
as well as their two sons, Mark and Diarmuid, aged 25 and 23.
Tensions in the home had developed after Anne had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, in February,
and the issue of inheritance caused a rift within the family. Diarmuid claimed that he’d
take his own life if he didn’t have his way with the will. His lion’s share claim to the
140-acre property was supported by his father who threatened violence and pressured Anne
into favoring Diarmuid. She would, however, take Mark’s side and wanted to split the farm
even as her other son was also set to inherit land from his father. Mark began to fear for
his mother’s safety, as well as his own, to such a degree that he slept by the foot of her
bed. The situation continued to deteriorate. On October the 26th of 2020, at around 7 am,
Anne awoke to the sound of gunshots. She found that Tadg and Diarmuid had gunned down Mark in his
bed. When she arrived at the horrific scene, they shot him again, with bullets ravaging his arms
as he helplessly tried to defend himself. One bullet fatally pierced his skull. Anne was left
alive by the duo, who only took her cellphone, and she ran to a neighbor’s home to alert the
authorities. Both Diarmuid and his father took their own lives, via a single gunshot wound each,
less than half a mile from the property. A few days earlier, Diarmuid had warned a neighbor that
the lights on the property would never shine again and that there would be a “trail of carnage”. Six
months after the tragedy, Anne, who believed she’d been left alive to suffer, passed away as well.
Thanks for watching! Would you rather inherit a luxury home OR receive a $10,000 monthly allowance
for the rest of your life? Let us know in the comments section below!