- 3 months ago
Time to separate fact from sensational fiction. Join us as we bust persistent myths surrounding infamous cases, from the Black Dahlia’s rumored acting career and Charles Manson’s “nonviolent” reputation to Ted Bundy’s supposed legal credentials, Bonnie & Clyde’s romanticized image, and beyond. Which long-held misconception shocked you the most? Sound off in the comments—and remember to keep it respectful to victims and their families.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Well, I'm Ms. Bonnie Parker, and this here's Mr. Clyde Barrow. We rob banks.
00:06Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're looking at 10 common misconceptions and misunderstandings
00:12around famous true crime cases. Would Dylan be a part of it? I couldn't imagine it,
00:18but could he be caught up in it in some way? Yes.
00:21The Black Dahlia was an actress.
00:23Los Angeles, California, January 15, 1947. It's an uncharacteristically cool morning
00:30in Leimert Park. Pop culture seems to think that the Black Dahlia was some kind of Hollywood
00:36actress, but this is far from the truth. The murder happened in Los Angeles, near the heart
00:41of the film industry, and the media at the time was fascinated by the idea of young women coming
00:47to Hollywood to chase fame and meeting tragic ends.
00:50Hey, listen up. No reporters view the body. Photo men, finish taking your pictures now.
00:55Current men, put a sheet on the body as soon as they're done.
00:58Naturally, the newspaper sensationalized virtually every detail of the case.
01:03Reporters often described Short as an actress, but there is no evidence that she had ever worked
01:08in film, or even that she auditioned for a movie. But this image sold papers and added a lurid
01:14Hollywood glamour to the story, and alas, the legend was born.
01:17She's a high school dropout, and she's kind of bouncing around from friend to friend,
01:22you know, what the youngsters call couch surfing now. So she was really trying to figure out what
01:27it is that she wants to do with herself. When she came to L.A., Beth describes herself as an
01:32aspiring actress. However, there's no evidence that she ever auditioned for any roles.
01:36Charles Manson never committed violence himself.
01:39We therefore intend to show that Charles Manson was in fact the dictatorial leader of the family,
01:45and that everyone in the family was slavishly obedient to him,
01:48and that eventually they committed the seven Tate-LaBianca murders at his command.
01:53There are a ton of myths surrounding the Manson family, including the supposed fact that Charles
01:58Manson himself never personally committed violence. It's true that he did not touch the six victims of
02:04the Tate-LaBianca murders, but to say that he never committed violence is outright false.
02:09For example, he once sliced musician Gary Hinman with a sword, and he shot a drug dealer named
02:15Bernard Crowe.
02:16Did you kill Shay?
02:17Hell no.
02:17Did you cut the human's ear off?
02:19Hell yes.
02:20While Crowe survived, Manson intended to kill him. And in his memoir,
02:25Good Vibrations, My Life is a Beach Boy, Mike Love claims that Dennis Wilson once witnessed
02:29Manson killing a black man and shoving his body down a well. It's clear that, despite the enduring
02:35myth, Manson did indeed have a long history of violence.
02:39He said, well, I was out at the ranch, meaning the Spahn Ranch, and I saw Charlie take an M16 rifle
02:46and blow a black cat in half, I mean a human being, and stuff him down a well. He never said that to any
02:54authorities, never told it to anybody, but he was, he told me.
02:58Well, by black cats, you're talking about a human being?
03:00Exactly.
03:01Bonnie and Clyde were romantic bank robbing outlaws.
03:05Good afternoon, this is the Barrow Gang. Now, if everybody will just take it easy, nobody will get hurt.
03:11When you think of legendary bank robbers, you probably think of Bonnie and Clyde. Only this
03:15young couple was less romantic bank robbers and more desperate and horribly violent small-time
03:21criminals in way over their heads. Heck, they barely even robbed banks. They mostly targeted
03:26small stores and gas stations, often netting only a few dollars at a time.
03:31You know, Clyde, I read about you all in the papers and I just get scared.
03:39Now, Ms. Parker, don't you believe what you read in all them newspapers?
03:42They were also not romantic Robin Hood figures, as they never fought for a cause or gave money to
03:47the poor. The Robin Hood narrative grew out of widespread public resentment of banks during the
03:53Great Depression, not from anything Bonnie and Clyde actually did. And lastly, they were not cool
03:58folk heroes. They were thieves and murderers claiming at least 12 innocent lives.
04:04The most infamous outlaws of all were a pair of young lovers
04:08whose two-year crime spree included armed robbery, car theft, abduction, murder, and a series of
04:17dramatic gun battles across at least 11 states.
04:21John Wayne Gacy buried all of his victims under his house.
04:24John, I'm sorry to disturb you, but that hideous stench coming from under your house is getting worse.
04:30It's moisture buildup in my crawlspace. I'm taking care of it, I promise. Now, don't forget the 4th of July, right?
04:35Two things are widely known about John Wayne Gacy. He worked as a clown and he buried his
04:40victims in the crawlspace of his house. And while it's true that many victims were buried
04:44under the house, it was certainly not all of them.
04:47When they executed that search warrant, they went in the crawlspace and the very first shovel
04:52that they dug, they found human remains.
04:56Police had finally unearthed the secrets that Gacy had thought would stay buried forever.
05:02Gacy killed at least 33 young men and boys, but only 29 were found buried on his property.
05:08And even then, 26 were in the crawlspace. Three more were hidden elsewhere, like under the garage
05:13and driveway. The final four victims were not even buried at all, but dumped in the Des Plaines River,
05:20as Gacy had run out of room around his home.
05:23One of the bodies found floating in the Des Plaines River in April 1979 was that of Rob
05:29Piest, the 15-year-old boy whose disappearance had ultimately led to Gacy's downfall.
05:35Eileen Wuornos acted in self-defense.
05:38People always look down their noses at hookers.
05:42Never give you a chance because they think you took the easy way out.
05:44Monster and Charlize Theron did a lot towards the public perception of Eileen Wuornos.
06:02Wuornos claims that she killed seven men in self-defense while she engaged in sex work,
06:07and the story fits a compelling cultural archetype.
06:10The abused woman fighting back against predatory men, ignored and misunderstood by society.
06:16But the story is just that, a story.
06:18No, I don't want to hear this, Lee.
06:21I know, but you need to.
06:23We can be as different as we want to be, but you can't kill people.
06:26Says who?
06:27The evidence consistently and overwhelmingly contradicts her self-defense narrative,
06:32often showing premeditation and opportunism.
06:35In other words, she murdered men for their money.
06:38Yes, Wuornos suffered a horrific childhood and suffered a degree of mental illness.
06:43That is undeniable.
06:44But the sympathy should stop there.
06:46She was just utterly remorseless.
06:48She didn't just shoot them once.
06:49She'd shoot them three times, four times, five times.
06:52They had all been shot with a small caliber weapon, namely a .22.
06:57And another trait that these victims shared was that they had all been robbed with their personal effects.
07:03Ted Bundy had a law degree.
07:04Ted Bundy.
07:08The FBI suspects him of being America's worst sex killer.
07:15Murdering possibly 40 coeds in six states over a five-year period.
07:20This serial killer is almost mythical in stature,
07:23having cultivated an image as an attractive, charismatic, and intelligent psychopath.
07:28There's even an enduring myth that Bundy had a law degree,
07:31and that's why he defended himself in court.
07:33But here's the thing, anyone can defend themselves in court.
07:36If there's any more delay in this court's proceeding, occasioned by your voluntary acts,
07:41we're proceeding without you.
07:43Since I have been in Dade County, I've been allowed to...
07:46Don't shake your finger at me, young man.
07:48Don't shake your finger at me, young man.
07:50Yes, Bundy briefly enrolled in law school in the early 1970s,
07:54but saying that he studied law is being super generous,
07:57as he attended classes for only a few months before dropping out.
08:01His grades were mediocre, and classmates later said that he didn't stand out in any way.
08:06So when he acted as his own attorney during his Florida murder trials,
08:09it wasn't because he was a qualified genius.
08:12It was because he wanted attention.
08:13It's a tragedy for this court to see it's such a total waste action for humanity
08:19that I've experienced in this court.
08:21You're a bright young man.
08:24If you had made a good lawyer, I'd love to have you practiced in front of me,
08:27but you went another way, partner.
08:29H.H. Holmes had an elaborate murder castle.
08:32That man is Herman Webster Mudgett,
08:36known to the world as a notorious killer, H.H. Holmes.
08:39It's one of the most fascinating stories in all of true crime.
08:43H.H. Holmes abducted people from the Chicago World's Fair,
08:47brought them back to his murder castle,
08:49and killed them with elaborate traps, secret rooms, body shoots, and giant acid pits.
08:55Some say he killed up to 200 people.
08:58Nah.
08:58This is a classic case of yellow journalism clouding facts and legend overtaking history.
09:03There's a secret staircase that appears at the end of a hallway to nowhere.
09:08A windowless room completely lied with asbestos to muffle sound.
09:13Several secret chambers and a vault which locks from the outside.
09:18The murder castle did exist, but it wasn't a demonic, labyrinthian death trap.
09:22And the secret death rooms were never verified by investigators.
09:27And Holmes was indeed a murderer, but these were mostly personal and financial killings,
09:31not random murders of kidnapped tourists.
09:34In reality, that murder castle was nothing but a shoddy and poorly constructed hotel.
09:39All eyes on the spectacle, no eyes are on him or the increasing list of missing women.
09:46Jeffrey Dahmer was a reclusive loner.
09:48Anybody a drink?
09:52Both ears.
09:56The infamous Jeffrey Dahmer is often portrayed as a withdrawn and friendless recluse,
10:01an image that was amplified by news coverage and pop culture.
10:05But this myth goes against the very nature of his crimes.
10:08Dahmer was known for his attention-seeking humor in school,
10:12and people later reported Dahmer as being quiet and odd, but friendly.
10:16Oh, hey.
10:16I gotta say, that smell is worse than ever.
10:21Is it?
10:21He had a job, conversed casually with neighbors and co-workers,
10:25and he frequently went out to bars and clubs.
10:28And he was certainly charismatic enough to pick up his victims,
10:31despite their potential reservations.
10:33Dahmer was reserved, but he was no Ed Gein.
10:36He was a functioning social participant.
10:39The horror isn't that he was invisible.
10:41It's that he was visible, and no one realized what he was doing.
10:44I really like pork chops.
10:47My family sent me a bunch of meat.
10:51But I forgot to plug that little freezer in.
10:57And it all went bad.
11:00The Columbine shooters were taking revenge.
11:03Once you hate the bullies and no one does anything to defend you,
11:06you hate the people in the class that don't say anything.
11:09You hate the teacher that doesn't say anything.
11:11You hate the counselors that allow it to happen.
11:13They, in essence, end up hating the school, not just the bullies.
11:17They hate the school, and they want to kill the school.
11:20It's one of the most persistent myths in all of true crime,
11:23that the Columbine shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold,
11:27were social outcasts seeking revenge on the jocks and popular students who tormented them.
11:33This explanation fit an easy moral framework and fed the media's hunger for a simple explanation.
11:38I think that they didn't see that they had a lot going for them.
11:44They became isolated.
11:46And that isolation and then exposure to a lot of negative influences in their life
11:52that they chose to focus on,
11:54I think really took them towards a darker and darker place.
11:57In reality, they weren't loner outcasts.
12:00In fact, Harris was quite popular,
12:03and they didn't go after specific individuals.
12:06In fact, their original plan was a bombing designed to kill as many people as possible.
12:11When this failed, they began shooting indiscriminately.
12:14The shooting was mainly the result of Harris' budding psychopathy
12:17and desire for domination coupled with Klebold's general despair and hatred of the world.
12:23Eric's secret journals and video recordings leave the clear impression of a disturbed mind
12:28filled with grandiose and destructive schemes.
12:33Dylan, however, is a mystery.
12:35Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel
12:38and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
12:41You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
12:45If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
12:49Ed Gein had a high body count.
12:53When the police first broke into Gein's house
12:56and discovered this crazy mass of body parts,
13:00their first assumption was Gein was a serial killer.
13:03It was only during his interrogation
13:05that he revealed that they were taken from the corpses
13:10he had dug up from the local cemetery.
13:12Pop culture has warped Ed Gein into characters like Leatherface and Norman Bates,
13:17killers with far higher body counts than Gein himself.
13:21Gein is almost always remembered as one of America's most infamous serial killers,
13:25a depraved man who murdered people before skinning their bodies,
13:29Buffalo Bill style.
13:30It rubs the lotion on its skin.
13:32It does this whenever it's told.
13:34Mister, my family will pay cash.
13:37Whatever ransom you're asking for, they'll pay it.
13:40It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.
13:45But while Gein technically fits the FBI's definition of a serial killer,
13:49his body count is far lower than you might expect.
13:52In reality, Gein killed just two people.
13:55What really cemented his place in legend were the masks, skin suits, and skull bowls.
14:01But these came from corpses that Gein grave robbed, not murder victims.
14:06It's still a horrific story, but the distinction must be made.
14:10Ed Gein was no Leatherface.
14:12We think of Gein as this notorious American serial murderer,
14:19but in many ways he doesn't really fit that profile.
14:22Did you believe these stories?
14:24Let us know in the comments.
Comments