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...

It was supposed to be the perfect crime. But the two arrogant rich kids who murdered a 14-year-old boy were not as clever as they thought, and police were on their trail within hours. Just after 5 p.m. on 21 May 1924, 14-year-old Bobby Franks was walking home down Ellis Avenue in the wealthy district of Kenwood, Chicago, when a large blue sedan pulled up beside him. To his surprise, his distant cousin and best friend’s elder brother, 18-year-old Richard Loeb, leaned out and called to him, offering him a lift home. Franks accepted, enthusiastic at the prospect of a free ride. Since Loeb, curiously, was sitting in the back of the large car, the boy hopped in beside the driver, whom he recognised as Loeb’s inseparable companion, Nathan Leopold. Apparently safe in the company of a cousin he admired for cleverness, good looks and athleticism, and with noting to fear from his quiet, scholarly friend, Franks had not the least suspicion that he would shortly become the victim of one of thi...