Scary true crime stories can be extremely captivating as they give us an insight into
a world that most of us steer clear from. But there are some weird true crime stories
that sound like they shouldn’t exist, due to their bizarre nature - proving once again that,
on some occasions, the truth can be stranger than fiction.
5. Ruben Zarate
In most true crime stories, criminals do enough planning to give themselves the
best possible chance at getting away with their crime, sometimes going to
ridiculous lengths to keep their identities hidden from witnesses and security cameras.
But would-be robber, Ruben Zarate (zah rah tee), lacked the common sense to successfully carry
out his plans when he decided to rob a muffler shop in Chicago in 2008. On the morning of the
24th of March at around 8 am, the 18-year-old man walked into Velasquez Mufflers For Less,
located at 2600 Laramie Avenue, hoping to walk out with a wad of cash.
Sporting a mask and brandishing a firearm, Zarate demanded that employees of the shop
hand over any money they had, but he was informed that they were unable to open
the safe as the owner of the shop was the only one who knew the combination.
Zarate decided to leave his two cell phone numbers with them and told them to call him
when the owner arrived, threatening that he would harm them if they failed to do so.
As soon as he left, the employees phoned Chicago police. Plain clothed officers travelled to the
shop and asked staff members to phone Zarate and to tell him that the owner had arrived.
The officers told the employees to wait at the back of the shop and at around noon,
Zarate arrived, wearing the same mask. When he realized what was going on,
he pulled his firearm from his hooded sweatshirt, but the officers opened fire first and he was hit.
He was taken for treatment at a nearby hospital where he made a full recovery.
4.
Christine de Védrines
In 2009, the Védrines (Veh Dreen) family lived a privileged life in an ancestral chateau in
the southwest of France until they met a man named Thierry Tilly (teery tilly). Up until this point,
the family had employed professionals to look after their home, trusts and investments,
but Tilly convinced them that he could do a better job and they decided to trust him.
Tilly claimed that he was a descendent of the House of Habsburg and the son of an
Olympic ice-skater. But his tales only grew more fantastical over time and soon enough,
they believed that he was also a secret agent and that their lives were in imminent danger.
He told them that their house was bugged and that they were being spied on by an evil network of
scary people that included some of their own family members. Soon they retreated to a life
of solitude, barricading themselves inside the building while fearing for their lives.
He then claimed that it was too dangerous for the family to stay in their chateau
and convinced them to sell seven of their properties for five million Euros, but they
never saw any of that money and by 2006, Tilly had convinced the family to move to Oxford in England
where they worked as cleaners, gardeners and cooks, handing most of their earnings over to him.
He became so controlling that he monitored the food they ate and forbid them from seeing other
people. Christine de Védrines was confined to her room and if Tilly suspected that
money was being hidden from him, she would be given only tea, bread and biscuits to eat.
While she worked at a delicatessen in Oxford, Christine’s boss, Robert
Pouget (pooshjay), became suspicious of Tilly when he met him and with the help of her cousin,
he snuck Christine back into France without her husband who was still under Tilly’s influence.
Christine decided to report Tilly to the authorities and in 2009 he was finally arrested,
but not before he had completely ruined the de Védrines family financially.
At his trial, Tilly was described by the prosecutor as a liar and a fantasist who
had created an atmosphere of group paranoia and mental destabilization among the family.
It was later found that he had devised the scheme together with a man named
Jacques Gonzales who would eventually be sentenced to 4 years in prison.
Tilly was charged with kidnapping, psychological subjection,
fraud and abuse of the vulnerable and sentenced to spend 8 years behind bars.
3.
Klaus Schmidt
In August of 1995, a man named Klaus Schmidt decided to try and get rich quickly by robbing
a bank in Berlin, despite the fact that he was deaf. He entered the bank holding a firearm
and after approaching the teller, demanded that they hand over any money that they had.
The teller immediately complied, as they are trained to do,
but at some point during the robbery, one of the staff members noticed that Schmidt
was acting strangely, but couldn’t quite put their finger on what exactly was out of place.
While the teller was collecting the money, they asked Schmidt if he was going to need a
bag to transport all of that money to which he replied: “you’re right it’s a real gun!”
They then realized that he had only guessed what the question was
and set off the bank’s alarm, unbeknownst to the robber.
Employees later described the alarm as “incredibly loud”,
but due to his condition, Schmidt was none the wiser. He continued with the robbery,
occasionally pausing to shout threats such as “I am a trained killer”.
Employees were able to stall him long enough for the police to arrive
and he was arrested on the spot. Unbelievably, after he was incarcerated,
Schmidt decided to sue the bank, claiming that they had taken advantage of his disability
and if they hadn’t done so, he would never have been caught.
2. Sarah
Tolbert
In the summer of 1964, 23-year-old Sara Tolbert was dating a 33-year-old man named Calvin Jones
who, unbeknownst to Sarah, was a scary person who had spent time in prison before after he
had attempted to poison his wife. On the 13th of January, the couple booked into a hotel and just
20 minutes later, started ordering large amounts of wine and whiskey to be sent to their room.
Just after 1 pm the following day, neighboring guests reported hearing a commotion from
their room and heard Jones aggressively yelling at Sarah. A few minutes later,
the yelling had stopped, but it was replaced by the sound of someone being assaulted.
Soon after, Jones opened the couple’s door along with Sarah, who he was barely able to hold
upright. A staff member asked if she was alright, to which Jones replied that she had just had too
much to drink. In reality, Jones had assaulted Sarah with a hose and she had lost her life.
Jones then placed Sarah into his car and spent the next several hours driving around, seemingly
not knowing what to do after committing such a heinous crime. He ultimately decided that it would
be best to drive to the nearest police station and confess what had happened, which he then did.
Given his chequered past, it was expected that Jones would receive a heavy sentence
for the murder, but in a stunning coincidence, he would escape the charge
and only be put on trial for aggravated assault and battery.
When a medical examination was carried out on Sarah, it was found that she suffered from a
rare blood disease called sickle cell anaemia. The condition causes the body’s red blood cells
to become sickle-shaped, disrupting the flow of oxygen through the body.
It would then come to light that, even if she hadn’t been assaulted by Jones,
she was on the verge of passing away and would very likely not have made it through
the night due to her condition as she would only have lived for a few more hours at most.
Two separate medical examiners would come to the same conclusion – that Sarah had
passed away due to natural causes and it was impossible to prove that the assault dealt by
Jones had any part to play in her passing.
At Jones’ trial, a judge described the case as rare and unusual and assured Jones that,
if it weren’t for the medical reports, he would be facing a charge of murder.
1. Albert Spaggiari
In 1951, Albert Spaggiari was 19 years old and he had enlisted in the French army as a paratrooper.
While serving in the 3rd battalion colonial paratroopers
during the First Indochina (china) War, he was sent to prison for 4 years after he and
a few other scary people threatened a man with a firearm, believing that he had robbed them.
After his release, he moved to North Africa where he joined the Secret Army
which sought to prevent Algeria from gaining independence. This would lead to Spaggiari
spending another stint in jail, this time being sentenced to three and a half years.
Thereafter, he moved back to Nice in France with his wife where they
lived in the countryside, raising chickens while Spaggiari worked as a photographer.
In 1975, he was recruited by the Chilean Secret Police
under the codename “Daniel”, though his activities during this time are unknown.
Spaggiari then learned that the sewers ran close to the vault in a bank
and he decided to plan an intricate robbery by digging into the vault from
below. He rented a safety deposit box and placed a loud alarm clock inside.
He set the clock to ring during the night, checking to see if any acoustic detection
systems were in place and when he found that there weren’t, he put together a team to aid
in the heist. Over the next two months, the men spent their time in the sewers,
digging a 26-foot tunnel towards the vault.
He told his men that, while they were drilling, they were not allowed to drink any coffee or
alcohol and to get at least 10 hours of sleep between their shifts
in order to stay vigilant and focused on the task at hand.
On the 16th of July, the gang finally managed to drill through the thick walls of the safe
which was regarded by its makers as impenetrable. It is said that,
after welding the vault door shut from the inside, Spaggiari laid out a picnic of pate
and wine for his fellow bank robbers and they spent the next few hours emptying the boxes.
They would go on to steal from an estimated 400 boxes,
pocketing between 30 and 100 million francs worth of cash, valuables and documents. He and his men
had successfully completed the largest bank robbery ever recorded at that time.
Before making their way out of the vault, they wrote a message on its walls that read: “without
weapons, hatred or violence”. At first, French police were left clueless about who had committed
the crime, but when one of the thieves’ former girlfriend submitted a tip, he was arrested.
He was subjected to a lengthy interrogation and eventually broke down, naming the entire gang,
including Spaggiari who was in the Far East accompanying the mayor of Nice as a photographer.
As soon as Spaggiari returned to town, he was met by police at the airport and arrested.
At his trial, he created a coded document that he claimed was evidence of his innocence.
While the judge was attempting to decipher the document, he jumped out of a window,
landing on a car parked below and escaped on a waiting motorcycle.
Spaggiari was sentenced to life in prison in absentia
and spent the rest of his life in hiding. He would eventually pass away from lung cancer in 1989.