True Crime

Classification:  Murderer Characteristics:  Erotically asphyxiating her lover and then cutting off his penis and testicles Number of victims:  1 Date of murder:  May 18, 1936 Date of arrest:  3 days after Date of birth:  May 28, 1905 Victim profile:  Kichizo Ishida, 42  (her lover) Method of murder:  Strangulation Location:  Tokyo, Japan Status:  Convicted of murder in the second degree and mutilation of a corpse on December 21, 1936. Sentenced to 6 years in prison. Sentence commuted on November 10, 1940. Released on May 17, 1941. Died after 1970 Sada Abe  ( 阿部 定   Abe Sada , May 28, 1905 – after 1970) was a Japanese woman who is remembered for erotically asphyxiating her lover,  Kichizo Ishida  ( 石田 吉蔵   Ishida Kichizō ), on May 18, 1936, and then cutting off his penis and testicles and carrying them around with her in her handbag. The story became a national sensation in Japan, acquiring mythic overto...

Christmas is the season of goodwill. But in Birmingham in 1959 it was marked by a gruesome attack on a helpless girl by a homicidal maniac. On 23 December 1959, 20-year-old Margaret Brown's thoughts were of Christmas, which she was spending at her parent’s home in Edinburgh. It was late afternoon and she was getting the last bits of her washing and ironing done in the laundry room before leaving on Christmas Eve. Her lodgings were at the YWCA Hostel known as 'Edencroft', a large Georgian-style house in Wheeley Road, Edgbaston, one of Birmingham's more select districts. In common with the other girls there she had her own room with the annex off the main building, but ironing and washing facilities were shared. This annex was a single storey block, so each room was on the ground floor. Most of her fellow lodgers had left the hostel and gone their various ways for the Christmas holidays, but a few were still in the common room watching television. Margaret's priori...

Men were dying in Florida. Truck drivers were warned: don't stop for a certain hitch-hiker. Richard Mallory cruised his Cadillac down Interstate 4 through the warm Florida night, on his way to Daytona from Tampa. He was in no real hurry; he felt too apathetic and depressed. His electronics business was going badly, he was heavily in debt, and he had just broken up with his girlfriend. He had been drinking, and was about to light up a 'reefer' of marijuana. Suddenly, a figure appeared in his headlights, thumbing a lift. Mallory slowed down. He saw that it was a woman of medium build, carelessly dressed in cut-off jeans, T-shirt and baseball cap, and carrying a shoulder bag. Mallory felt the need of company. If it was a woman, so much the better. Drinking and driving The woman drawled that if he was on his way to Daytona, that was fine. As they moved off, Mallory asked her if she minded him smoking the reefer. She laughed and told him he could do what he liked. She accep...