#7 - Mariana Bazza
A 19-year-old university student was kidnapped and murdered by a man who’d offered to help
replace her flat tire, in September of 2019. At approximately 8 am, on the 24th of the month,
physiotherapy student Mariana Bazza departed from a gym in Bariri, Brazil with a friend. After
her colleague had already left for work on her motorcycle, Bazza noticed that one of the tires on
her car was deflated. A passerby, later identified as Rodrigo Pereira Alves, aged 37, approached the
young woman and offered to assist her in fixing the flat. CCTV footage from the exterior of the
gym captured the initial interaction. Alves then crossed over to the other side of the road and was
soon followed by Bazza, who drove her car into a small lot outside the purview of the surveillance
cameras. Bazza took a picture of the man as he worked on her vehicle and sent it to members
of her family, including her boyfriend, lieutenant navy officer Jefferson Vianna. As the latter later
told the police, Bazza indicated that she wasn’t fearful of Alves at the time she’d sent the image.
That message marked the final communication made by the young woman prior to her death.
Security cameras recorded Bazza’s car being driven from the scene, roughly an hour later,
but investigators believed that it was Alves operating the vehicle. One of Bazza's relatives
attempted to contact her later that day, but was unable to reach her. The student was subsequently
reported missing, and local authorities launched a manhunt for Alves after gaining access to
the picture Bazza had taken of him. Officers descended on the suspect’s residence in Itápolis,
and eventually located him hiding on the roof of a nearby house. The man confessed to the murder
and revealed that he’d dumped the victim’s body at a sugar cane farm, 40 miles from the gym at which
he’d first encountered her. Alves was reported as an individual with an extensive criminal record,
and had only been released from prison a month before he carried out Bazza’s murder.
Investigators later established that it was Alves himself who’d slashed the young woman’s tire
in the first place in order to entrap her. #6 - William Husel
An Ohio doctor was charged with multiple counts of murder for prescribing fatal
doses of pain medication to a number of his patients, from 2015 to 2018. During his tenure
as a critical-care physician at Mount Carmel Health, in Columbus, 43-year-old William Husel
had allegedly ordered dangerously high doses of Fentanyl for at least 25 of the individuals
entrusted to his care. One of the cases for which the doctor was criminally charged
involved a 63-year-old woman by the name of Beverlee Schirtzinger. Husel had reportedly
given the elderly patient 500 micrograms of the synthetic opioid substance, which medical experts
characterized as a lethal dose. In October of 2017, Schirtzinger passed away not long
after Husel had told the woman’s family that her prognosis was bleak. A hospital staffer alerted
local authorities to the doctor’s suspicious behavior and an investigation into his conduct
led to his arrest on June the 5th of 2019. Detectives didn’t disclose what they believed
to have been the man’s motive for distributing the deadly dosages to his patients. Prosecutors
contended that there was no legitimate medical basis for Husel to have administered the drugs in
such extreme quantities. The former doctor filed a motion to have his murder charges dismissed,
but a Franklin County judge eventually denied his formal request in December of 2021.
#5 - Sydney Loofe In November of 2017,
a young woman was murdered and dismembered after being lured on a date with a woman she’d met
online. On November the 14th, 24-year-old hardware store clerk Sydney Loofe, of Neligh, Nebraska,
went on her first date with Bailey Boswell, also 24, whom she’d first encountered on Tinder.
After their initial meet up, Loofe was excited about seeing her again, as she’d reportedly told
her colleague, Terra Gehring. Loofe sent a message to her friends on Snapchat, prior to her second
date with Boswell the following night. She then failed to show up to work on November the 16th,
prompting her loved ones to report her missing to local authorities. Loofe’s remains were eventually
found by investigators on December the 4th, three weeks after her abrupt disappearance.
Her dismembered body parts had been discarded in several trash bags. The investigation conducted
by Saline County police led them to arrest Boswell and her boyfriend, Aubrey Trail,
aged 51. According to court records, Boswell had brought Loofe to Trail’s residence,
on the night of their second date, reportedly hoping to recruit the victim into the man’s cult.
At one point in the evening, Trail allegedly strangled Loofe with an extension cord in an
effort to keep her from alerting the authorities to his and Boswell’s supposedly illicit lifestyle.
During a court hearing in 2019, Trail attempted to slit his own throat while loudly declaring
his girlfriend’s innocence. He was ultimately sentenced to death in June of 2021, while Boswell
was given a life sentence later that same year. #4 - Anthony Sootheran
A woman was found guilty of fatally starving her landlord in order to inherit his multi-million
dollar estate. By the time of his death, in 2014, 59-year-old Anthony Sootheran’s health
had already been in severe decline. The reclusive millionaire required a live-in caretaker,
which prompted 62-year-old Lynda Rickard, a former social worker and trusted friend of his,
to move onto his farm in South Newington, Oxfordshire. Rickard subsequently orchestrated
a plot to steal the wealthy man’s fortune by forging his wills for him and his elderly mother
that made herself a beneficiary of his estate. The woman successfully convinced Michael Dunkley,
Denise Neal and Shanda Robinson to sign the fraudulent wills as witnesses. Rickard then
proceeded to deprive Sootheran of food and medical care in order to accelerate his imminent passing
and hasten her coming into control of his wealth. She discouraged visitors in an effort to conceal
the fact that the old man had become dangerously emaciated. Sootheran’s death hadn’t initially
aroused suspicion, but an investigation was launched into the matter after Rickard
was found to have taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from her former landlord’s bank accounts.
She eventually confessed to carrying out his murder and forging both wills, in January of 2020.
Dunkley, Neal, and Robinson were all found guilty of fraudulently signing said wills,
and were sentenced to prison terms varying in length from 24 to 32 months. Rickard was jailed
for a minimum of 28 years, while her husband was sentenced to 10 and a half years himself.
#3 - Gabrielle Ujlaky
A teenager from Nevada was abused and murdered by a close friend, in March of 2020. The victim
was identified as Spring Creek resident Gabrielle “Britney” Ujlaky, a self-described cowgirl with an
expressed passion for horses. The young woman had been reported missing on March the 8th.
Three days later, her body was found, with slash wounds on her throat, in a remote area
of the desert, near the city of Elko. On March the 19th, the Elko County Sheriff’s Office
announced in a press release that they’d arrested Bryce Dickey, aged 18, whom the victim had known
from the rodeo circuit for many years. Dickey had publicly mourned Ujlaky’s loss on Facebook,
in the days following her disappearance, but he was ultimately charged with open murder in
connection to her death. Investigators reportedly found bloody boots in the young man’s closet and
a contraceptive device near the scene of the crime that had traces of both Dickey’s and Ujlaky’s DNA
on it. Dickey had allegedly created a fake alibi during his initial interviews with the police,
claiming to have witnessed the victim climb into a green pickup truck with a tall cowboy on the night
she went missing. He faced a first-degree murder charge for killing the girl who’d
reportedly considered him to be her “big brother”. Today's topic was requested by Cameron Roberts.
If you have any other topics you'd like to learn about, subscribe & let us know in the
comments section below. #2 - Breck Bednar
On February the 17th of 2014, a teenage boy was murdered in Essex, England,
by a friend he’d met online. Before his violent demise, Breck Bednar, from Caterham, Surrey,
was a member of the Air Training Corps who’d spend a significant portion of his spare time
playing video games online with his friends. Through his gaming sessions, Bednar had become
acquainted with an unemployed computer engineer named Lewis Daynes, aged 19. The latter soon
joined the online gaming group to which Bednar also belonged. As their friendship progressed,
Bednar’s mother, Lorin LaFave, began to sense changes in the boy’s personality and ideology,
which she attributed to the negative influence Daynes was having on him. In December of 2013,
LaFave contacted Surrey law enforcement to express her concerns over the possibility
that her son had become a victim of online grooming. She provided little in the way of
actionable information for the police to follow through on, thus her impassioned warnings were
largely ignored by the authorities. On the day of Bednar’s murder, he’d hailed a taxi to take him
to Daynes’ apartment, where the two were to meet in-person for the first time. Later that day,
Bednar’s 12-year-old siblings, who were triplets, began receiving messages that their brother was
dead. Daynes had reportedly sent photos of Bednar’s body to their gaming group,
and the images were subsequently disseminated on social media. Emergency responders
were called to Daynes’ flat, where Bednar was found with fatal stab wounds to his neck.
He was pronounced dead at the scene. Daynes, who was described by his neighbors as reclusive,
was ultimately sentenced to life in prison for the murder. Crown Prosecutor Jenny Hopkins called it
one of the most cruel, violent and unusual cases with which she’d ever been involved.
#1 - Keeley Bunker
A 20-year-old woman from Tamworth, England was assaulted and murdered by her childhood friend
on the night of September the 18th of 2019. Keeley Bunker was accompanied by a close female friend
as she attended a performance by British rapper Aitch at the O2 Arena, in Birmingham.
The pair were reportedly celebrating Bunker’s recent birthday. After the concert had ended,
the two women met up with Wesley Streete, also 20, whom Bunker had known since they were children.
The group went to a nightclub, where Streete became extremely intoxicated after allegedly
consuming three drinks for every one the girls had had. They later got a taxi back to Tamworth,
at which point Bunker’s female friend offered to let her stay the night at her apartment.
The young woman refused, claiming that she was tired and wanted to sleep in her own
bed. Bunker also said that Streete would walk home with her and ensure she got there safely.
The following day, Bunker’s uncle found her lying face down in a brook in Wigginton Park.
Her lifeless body had been hidden beneath a pile of branches. A post-mortem examination
of Bunker’s corpse was performed, during which it was determined that she’d been strangled to death.
Streete’s DNA was found on her body and he was subsequently taken into custody and charged with
murdering his trusted friend. He claimed to have accidentally killed the young woman as they’d
supposedly engaged in consensual relations, but he was ultimately sentenced to life in prison.
Thanks for watching! Would you rather lose $10,000 in a catfish scam or marry someone only to find
out that they lied about their identity? Let us know in the comments section below!