The murder of Andrew Bagby was an event of terrible shock and grief for the loved ones he left behind, especially his mother and father. Andrew was David and Kate Bagby’s only child. He was well-liked with a promising future as a family physician.
In 1999, Andrew began dating medical intern Shirley Turner. When he tried to end things with Shirley, she responded badly. Andrew believed he had ended the relationship for good in November, 2001. But Shirley phoned him obsessively and drove 16 hours to show up unannounced at his door.
Andrew agreed to meet her after work on November 5, 2001. The following day, his body was found face down in a parking lot. He had been shot five times.
There was strong evidence against Shirley in Andrew’s murder. But David and Kate Bagby’s nightmare, which had begun with the murder of their son, would end with the death of their one-year-old grandson, Zachary. To add to their misery, it was clear to them that Zachary’s death was preventable. Zachary was in his mother’s care when he shouldn’t have been. Why did the Newfoundland Social Service system allow this tragedy to happen?
Join us at the quiet end today for the tragic story of two cold-blooded murders, one entirely preventable, in A Failure to Protect: The Story of Andrew Bagby & Zachary Turner.
Jack Unterweger’s lust for violence was insatiable. His first known murder victim was Margret Schafer, an 18-year-old German girl. Unterweger would tell a jury that, at the moment of her killing, he had seen his mother reflected in her face and he acted out of a lifetime of rage. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. But in jail, Unterweger read voraciously and he began to write poetry, short stories, plays, and an autobiography.
After over 15 years in prison, Unterweger was released based on the belief that writing his life story, and the self-reflection it required, had reformed him. Not only was he a famous author, he was also Austria’s most high-profile “rehabilitated” offender.
But Unterweger had everyone fooled. As he interviewed police in the role of a journalist, he had already resumed his life as a serial killer. Unterweger sexually assaulted and brutally murdered prostitutes in Vienna, Los Angeles, and Prague as he spoke on talk shows and worked to get his books made into Hollywood movies.
Join us at the quiet end today for The Devil Himself: Jack Unterweger. It’s the shocking story of an international serial killer who was hiding in plain sight.
Apparently hard-working and intelligent mother of two and registered nurse, Kristen Gilbert, was living the life of a middle-class soccer mom. She had a good job, a loving husband, and two children. She seemed a lot like the other Massachusetts suburbanites in her neighborhood, but she held sinister secrets that eventually bubbled to the surface.
Beneath the façade of an ordinary working mother, Kristen lived a life of duplicity. Before her 30th birthday, she was arrested on suspicion of serial murder: injecting patients at the hospital where she worked with lethal doses of epinephrine.
These were vulnerable victims and Kristen’s motives were a mystery, perhaps even to herself. It may have been as simple as a need for attention and excitement.
When a healthcare professional takes a life, it’s a special kind of evil. Trained and relied upon to protect and restore health and virtually holding their patients’ lives in their hands, a nurse who kills betrays the most basic trust while preying on the sick.
Join us at the quiet end today for Murder by Nurse: The Victims of Kristen Gilbert.
After suffering for years in an abusive marriage, Helle Crafts filed for divorce in the summer of 1986. Soon afterward, she disappeared. Her friends filed a missing person’s report, but her husband, Richard Crafts, gave various stories that Helle was off visiting relatives or that she just needed some time alone.
Police suspected foul play, but with no body, it was impossible to prove that a homicide had even occurred. Police did learn, however, that Richard Crafts had purchased several items, including new carpeting, bedding, and a large freezer, around the time of Helle’s disappearance. He had also rented a wood chipper.
A witness came forward, claiming that he had seen a man using a wood chipper on a bridge over a lake near the Crafts’ home. That is when the search for Helle took a very disturbing turn.
Join us at the quiet end today as we discuss a horrific crime often referred to as the "wood chipper case.” Investigators, along with Dr. Henry Lee, the Director of Connecticut’s Forensic Science Laboratory at the time, worked together to solve what Richard Crafts had considered his perfect crime. I chose this case because it serves to broaden awareness of domestic violence and because it is chock a block full of interesting forensics from a pre-DNA era.