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Truth really is stranger than fiction... Join us as we explore the most chilling coincidences in true crime history! From serial killers who crossed paths with celebrities to eerie patterns that defy explanation, these real-life twists of fate will leave you questioning whether some things are more than just random chance. Which of these unsettling connections sends the biggest chill down your spine?
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00:00Yosemite, California, one of the most stunningly beautiful places on earth,
00:04in the backdrop to one of the darkest most horrific family stories of two
00:08brothers. Welcome to WatchMojo and today we're breaking down cases where the
00:12overlap of circumstance, identity, or timing is almost too unsettling to
00:17believe. When I when I was writing the book about Ted Bundy and Ted was my
00:21partner at the crisis clinic so he was my friend before I had the book
00:25contract and I had that before I knew he was the suspect. Monster of Florence, a
00:32past killing that rhymed. There are reports flooding in about a maniac attacking
00:37young couples. And he may very well strike again. Italy's Monster of Florence case
00:51remains one of true crimes most infamous enigmas, a series of eight double
00:55homicides between 1968 and 1985 that left 16 victims dead in cars or on rural
01:01lovers lanes. Each couple was shot with the same 22 caliber Beretta, but no one was
01:06ever convicted with certainty. We've uncovered a connection.
01:12The same weapon used by our killer from 74 onwards was used to kill before.
01:17We've got one single witness. We know there's one person who saw the true face of
01:21the killer. One suspect, Pietro Pacciani, had a history that eerily echoed the later
01:27crimes. In 1951, he was jailed for murdering a man who'd been sleeping with his
01:32girlfriend, an act of jealousy resembling the monster's targeted attacks on couples.
01:37Investigators later called it a rhyme in violence, though no forensic link was ever
01:42proven. Pacciani was acquitted on appeal in 1996 and died two years later, leaving the
01:48coincidence and the case forever unresolved. Did I scare you?
01:52The alphabet murders, initials too perfect to ignore.
01:55It's a crime spree that has stumped investigators for decades.
01:59The brutal murders of three Rochester girls in the early 1970s have never been solved.
02:05News 10 NBC's Nikki Rudd has new details never heard before. Tonight, she's taking us inside the evidence.
02:12Rochester, New York saw three nearly identical child murders between 1971 and 1973 that became known as the
02:20Alphabet Murders. The victims, Carmen Colon, Wanda Walkowicz, and Michelle Mainza, each had matching first and last name initials.
02:28Even more chilling, two were found in towns beginning with those same letters, Walkowicz in Webster and Mainza in Macedon.
02:36Cologne's body was discovered in the town of Riga near Churchville. All three girls were abducted, assaulted, and strangled. Yet police never proved a single perpetrator.
02:46Any time that there's any sort of feeling in a city, in an area that there may be a serial killer, people panic.
02:55Monroe County Sheriff's Investigator Trevor Hibbard and Sergeant CJ Zimmerman believed this was just the start for a serial killer.
03:02The striking double initial pattern gave the crimes their nickname, the double initial murders, and has since inspired books and fictional adaptations.
03:12Decades later, the coincidence still haunts Rochester, a set of letters that spelled out what might be America's most haunting unsolved puzzle.
03:20There are many different theories, one or two killers. First of all, I don't know the answer.
03:26Every investigator I spoke with agrees. It could have been one killer.
03:30Are they connected?
03:31I believe they are. I think there's too many similarities.
03:36The Dog Walker murders. Two women, one chilling pattern.
03:40Three suspicious figures were reported. A vagrant, a van driver, and a man seen running from the area.
03:46The next ten minutes could be crucial to the inquiry. Unless a viewer can help now, the killer might not be caught until he strikes again.
03:54In England's southwest, two unsolved murders a year apart left detectives unsettled by a haunting symmetry.
04:01In 1997, 14-year-old Kate Bushell was attacked while walking her dog near Exeter.
04:07In 1998, 41-year-old Lynn Bryant was stabbed to death while walking her dog on a rural Cornish lane.
04:13I've dealt with many major investigations and latterly have been involved in reviewing some undetected cases, of which this is one.
04:24A local woman, she was born on the Roseland and actually was living in the house that she was born in at the time of her murder.
04:31She was five days short of her 41st birthday when she was murdered.
04:36Both were found in remote countryside spots, killed with a knife, and left with few forensic traces.
04:42The parallels – victim type, weapon, setting – were so specific that police publicly acknowledged the likelihood of a single offender, though no arrest ever followed.
04:52More than 25 years later, the dog walker murders remain among Britain's eeriest coincidences.
04:58Two ordinary outings on quiet lanes ending in identical tragedy, with the same phantom possibly behind both.
05:05The vagrant was seen around the area several times by the same witness.
05:09On one occasion…
05:11The vagrant came out from behind a tree, crossed the lane, and over the gateway. It was scary.
05:18This was half a mile from Kate's home, on a route she used to walk.
05:22It was Wednesday the 12th of November, three days before her murder.
05:27The Yorkshire Ripper – how the police almost caught him several times.
05:32For several years, women, especially here in West Yorkshire, were scared. Going out alone at night was a real risk.
05:39Peter Sutcliffe changed the way people lived.
05:43Still, he found victims, like Mo Lee, who was an art student in Leeds, and survived when Sutcliffe ambushed her.
05:51Peter Sutcliffe, dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper, murdered 13 women and attacked several others across Northern England between 1975 and 1980.
06:00Investigators interviewed him nine times during the manhunt, yet each time he slipped away, sometimes only streets from his crime scenes.
06:08Police were misled by the infamous Wearside Jack's hoax, which featured a fake accent on tapes and letters that diverted resources for years.
06:16And one of the top table officers said, is he a Geordie? No, no. What's his name? He said, Peter Sutcliffe.
06:26Now listen boys, Peter Sutcliffe, Peter Sutcliffe is not the Yorkshire Ripper.
06:34So Sutcliffe carried on killing.
06:37Sutcliffe's eventual arrest in 1981 came not from profiling, but from a random traffic stop.
06:43Officers noticed his car carried false plates.
06:46The cruel coincidence is how close authorities came again and again to catching him earlier.
06:51For years, those brief encounters, routine checks with a future serial killer, have stood as Britain's most haunting near miss in criminal history.
07:01West Yorkshire police has apologised for the way some senior officers spoke at the time about some of Sutcliffe's victims, a number of whom were sex workers.
07:09The force's chief constable said that while some of the language and attitudes may have reflected wider society at the time, they were wrong then and wrong now.
07:18Muriel McKay, a fatal case of mistaken identity.
07:22What have you been doing today?
07:24There's been a forensic search taking place most of the day.
07:27And tomorrow?
07:28Similar searches and enquires will be made.
07:31Throughout the night, the police will be keeping up the strict security cordon they've placed round the farm.
07:37And tomorrow, more than a hundred policemen will be drafted in.
07:40In 1969, Muriel McKay vanished from her London home in a crime rooted in pure mistaken identity.
07:47Two brothers, Arthur and Nizamuddin Hossein, planned to kidnap Anna Murdock, the then wife of newspaper magnate Rupert Murdock, for ransom.
07:56But when they followed the wrong Rolls Royce, they abducted Muriel, whose husband happened to drive a similar car.
08:02I would say this to whoever has got my mother-in-law, he's not going to crack this family.
08:09I mean that.
08:11And as time goes on, obviously nerves fray a bit.
08:14But we've got plenty of reserves yet.
08:25The kidnappers held her at Rook's Farm in Hertfordshire, demanding one million pounds.
08:30But she was never seen alive again.
08:32Both men were convicted of murder in 1970, even though her body was never recovered.
08:37One of Britain's first no-body murder convictions.
08:40McKay's death remains a grim illustration of coincidence turned catastrophic.
08:44An innocent woman killed because she happened to share the wrong address, car and social orbit.
08:50I am so sorry to say that the search has not been successful in finding Muriel's remains or any evidence relating to her kidnap and murder.
09:00I appreciate that this will be devastating for you, especially after all the work you have put in trying to find her.
09:06Lincoln and Kennedy, the assassination parallels that won't die.
09:10This amendment is that cure!
09:13We are stepped out upon the world stage now.
09:19Now!
09:20With the fate of human dignity in our hands.
09:26Blood's been spilled to afford us this moment.
09:29Now!
09:30Now!
09:31Now!
09:32Two of America's most famous presidents were killed nearly a century apart.
09:35Yet the coincidences connecting them have fascinated generations.
09:39Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre in 1865.
09:42While John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas in 1963, riding in a Lincoln convertible.
09:47From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time.
09:56Two o'clock Eastern Standard Time.
09:59Some 38 minutes ago.
10:01Both men were shot in the head on a Friday.
10:04Both were succeeded by vice presidents named Johnson.
10:07Andrew Johnson, born 1808.
10:09And Lyndon B. Johnson, born in 1908.
10:12And both assassins, John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald, had 15-letter names and were killed before standing trial.
10:19Most of these links are coincidences rather than conspiracy, but they remain among history's eeriest strings of repetition.
10:26The president has been shot!
10:29The president has been shot at Ford's Theatre!
10:35When the Beach Boys took in, who else?
10:38Charles Manson.
10:39Charles Manson.
10:40You've had so many good times.
10:41What was the low point for the Beach Boys?
10:44Well, for the Beach Boys?
10:47The low point for the group?
10:49I have to say that my cousin Dennis' choice in roommates, meaning Charlie Manson.
10:56Before his name became synonymous with terror, Charles Manson briefly moved through California's music scene.
11:02In 1968, Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson picked up two female hitchhikers, Patricia Krenwinkel and Ella Jo Bailey, who introduced him to Manson and his family.
11:12Wilson later invited them to his Sunset Boulevard home, unaware of who he was dealing with.
11:17You go to the shower, and quote, somebody joins you in the shower.
11:21Yes, right.
11:22I don't need details on that.
11:23But then Charles Manson comes.
11:25And opens the shower door.
11:26Opens the shower door and says, you can't do that.
11:28Says you can't do that.
11:29I said, excuse me, you can't leave the group.
11:33Within days, Manson and his followers were living in and around Wilson's property, eating his food, using his cars, and burning through thousands of dollars in expenses.
11:42Wilson even recorded a Manson song, which became the Beach Boys' B-side, Never Learn Not To Love.
11:55When Wilson began to distance himself, Manson grew threatening and disappeared from his life.
12:00Months later, his cult's brutal murders made global headlines.
12:03So, and it's funny because People Magazine ran the Beach Boys and their friendship with Charlie Manson.
12:10Well, it wasn't the Beach Boys.
12:11It was Dennis Wilson.
12:12But he's one of the Beach Boys.
12:13So, that's what I mean by, you know, an individual and a group and their tastes and lifestyle choices and friendships influence us all.
12:22The serial killer who posed with the first lady.
12:24The final words of the serial killer, quote, taking my life would not compensate for the loss of the others.
12:30This is the state murdering me.
12:33The prosecutor put it this way.
12:34He got a much easier death than any of his victims.
12:37In May 1978, Chicago contractor John Wayne Gacy was photographed shaking hands with the first lady, Rosalind Carter.
12:45A chilling image that only became infamous months later.
12:48At the time, Gacy was a respected local businessman who organized parades and served as director of Chicago's Polish Constitution Day festivities.
12:57A civic role that granted him secret service clearance for the photo opportunity.
13:01What no one realized was that Gacy had already embarked on a killing spree that would claim the lives of 33 males.
13:08The picture stands as a literal snapshot of how convincingly evil can masquerade as respectability.
13:14And he run the holes out in the street and he started draining out the water, pumping the water out.
13:19While he's pumping the water out, and that terrible smell is coming out, Steve.
13:24I said, hey, John.
13:25I said, what do you got, a bunch of dead bodies over there?
13:28He said, what do you mean?
13:29I said, what do I mean?
13:31It smells like a bunch of dead bodies.
13:33He said, oh, no, those are all dead fuel mice, you know.
13:37Franz Ferdinand's fatal wrong turn.
13:40Mr. Mayor, one comes here for a visit and is received by bombs. It is outrageous.
13:47Sometimes history hinges on a single mistake.
13:50On June 28th, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were visiting Sarajevo when their motorcade narrowly survived a failed bombing attempt.
14:00Later that morning, they decided to visit the wounded at a nearby hospital, an unplanned change that confused their driver.
14:06Taking a wrong turn off Ap el Cuey, the car stopped and stalled as it tried to reverse.
14:11Standing just a few feet away was Gavrilo Princip, a young nationalist who moments earlier believed his chance to act had passed.
14:19He seized the opportunity, fatally shot both Ferdinand and Sophie.
14:23That single navigational error became the spark that ignited World War One, proving that sometimes a coincidence, a wrong street, a stalled car, can change the course of global history.
14:34It was fate, a destiny. Call it what you may. But it was just a day fraught with mistakes. It's amazing.
14:45If the driver had been given the correct order to start with, he would have never made the turn and the Archduke friends, Ferdinand and Sophie, would never have been killed.
14:54Atlanta child murders, the splash that broke the case.
14:57Funeral services were held today for 15-year-old Joseph Bell, the 24th victim in Atlanta's child slayings.
15:04And as Bruce Hall reports, a woman reportedly is now telling authorities about a man she links to some of the crimes.
15:10Between 1979 and 1981, at least 29 black children and young adults were killed in a wave of terror that gripped Atlanta.
15:18The investigation, codenamed ATKID, consumed the city, until a random sound broke the case.
15:25Everybody awake out there?
15:27Campbell, it's Jacobs. You guys there?
15:31Yeah, we're here.
15:33Awake here.
15:34We're here.
15:35I just heard a splash.
15:36Got anybody on a bridge up there? I just heard a loud splash.
15:39Out of the bridge.
15:41Checking it out now.
15:42Anybody else hear a splash?
15:43Yeah, I'm on one car.
15:44Guys, clear this channel.
15:45In the early hours of May 22nd, 1981, police were staking out the James Jackson Parkway Bridge over the Chattahoochee River, near where bodies had been found.
15:56They heard a loud splash, then soon stopped a car leaving the bridge, driven by Wayne Bertram Williams.
16:02The name isn't on this registration. Why are you driving it?
16:06It's my uncle's car.
16:07Why do you have it?
16:08For work.
16:09At three o'clock in the morning.
16:11I'm in the music business. Nighttime is the right time.
16:14Right time for what?
16:15Do you mind if we search your vehicle, Mr. Williams?
16:17Sure.
16:18Go ahead.
16:19His shaky alibi collapsed when, two days later, the body of Nathaniel Cater surfaced downstream.
16:25Williams was later convicted of killing Cater and Jimmy Ray Payne, with fiber evidence linking him to many other victims.
16:32John Lennon autographed his killer's album.
16:35This entire half hour will be devoted to the murder of John Lennon, ex-Beatle, one of the best known musicians and most influential people of his time.
16:45As you heard Dr. Steven Lin at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City say, Lennon was shot and killed at about 11 o'clock last night outside his apartment building.
16:54On December 8, 1980, former Beatle John Lennon unknowingly signed the album that would become evidence in his own murder.
17:01That afternoon, outside New York's Dakota apartments, Lennon stopped to autograph Double Fantasy for Mark David Chapman, a fan who'd been loitering since morning.
17:11Photographer Paul Goresh captured the moment, Lennon's calm politeness, Chapman's eerie composure, and the record sleeve that would later be tagged as crime scene evidence.
17:21Hours later, Chapman returned to the same spot, and shot Lennon four times in the back, as he and Yoko Ono returned home from a recording session.
17:30The signed album was later sold at auction, still bearing Lennon's last signature and Chapman's fingerprints.
17:36Is that all you want?
17:37Yeah, thanks.
17:38You sure?
17:39That's all?
17:40Yeah, that's all.
17:41Thanks, John.
17:42You're welcome.
17:43Dahmer and the Syntheson Foam brothers.
17:44How old are you?
17:45Why do you care?
17:46Just asking a question.
17:47How old are you?
17:4821.
17:49You're right.
17:50Want me to get you something?
17:51What do you want?
17:52Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's crimes were horrifying enough, but one coincidence makes them nearly
17:53unbelievable.
17:54In 1988, Dahmer was convicted of sexually assaulting Somsack Syntheson Foam brothers.
17:55You're welcome.
17:56Dahmer and the Syntheson Foam brothers.
17:57How old are you?
17:58Why do you care?
17:59Just asking a question.
18:00How old are you?
18:0121.
18:02You're right.
18:03Want me to get you something?
18:04What do you want?
18:05Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's crimes were horrifying enough, but one coincidence makes them nearly
18:18unbelievable.
18:19In 1988, Dahmer was convicted of sexually assaulting Somsack Syntheson Foam and received
18:25a suspended sentence with probation.
18:27Just three years later, he met Somsack's younger brother Conorak on a Milwaukee street
18:32and murdered him.
18:33On the night of May 27, 1991, neighbors found Conorak dazed and bleeding.
18:39Police questioned Dahmer, who convinced them the boy was his adult lover.
18:43Do you know this kid?
18:44Yes, sir.
18:46This is my boyfriend.
18:47Boyfriend?
18:48Boyfriend?
18:49He came out of his apartment, he was talking crazy, he's butt naked, and he doesn't know
18:54what's going on.
18:55They escorted the victim back to Dahmer's apartment, unknowingly delivering him to his
19:00death.
19:01The officers were later fired for negligence.
19:03Uh, you guys...
19:04I don't know what you guys do, just take care of him.
19:08Okay?
19:09Yeah, I will.
19:10Thanks, officers.
19:12Sorry again.
19:13Yeah, now me and him, we gotta go take a shower.
19:16You know what I mean?
19:17Yeah.
19:18I do.
19:19Sorry about that.
19:20You guys have a good night.
19:23That one tragic overlap, a killer meeting and murdering the brother of a prior victim,
19:28is among the darkest coincidences in true crime history.
19:32A dangerous dating game winner.
19:34Well, let's see.
19:35Bachelor number one is a successful photographer, who got his start when his father found him
19:39in the dark room at the age of 13, fully developed.
19:43Between takes, he might find him skydiving or motorcycling, please welcome Rodney Alcala.
19:49Rod, welcome.
19:51In 1978, the television show The Dating Game gave a national platform to an unassuming bachelor
19:58named Rodney Alcala, who was, at that very moment, an active serial killer.
20:03Charming and articulate, Alcala won over the audience and the contestant Cheryl Bradshaw,
20:08who later refused to go out with him, saying he seemed creepy.
20:12That instinct may have saved her life.
20:14Well, I like bananas, so I'll take one.
20:17Number one.
20:18That's your number one.
20:19Alright.
20:22Behind the scenes, Alcala had already murdered multiple women and young girls, using his camera
20:27to lure victims.
20:28He was later convicted of killing Robin Samsoe and linked by DNA to several others across the
20:34US.
20:35The bizarre coincidence of a predator posing as a romantic game show contestant remains one of
20:40the most surreal intersections between entertainment and evil ever recorded.
20:44I'm a drama teacher, and I'm going to audition each of you for my private class.
20:53Bachelor number one.
20:55You're a dirty old man.
20:58Take it.
21:00Come on, over here.
21:05When a speech stopped a bullet, Theodore Roosevelt's near-death fluke.
21:09A hundred years ago, it wasn't that hard at all to run up to a president on a downtown
21:13street.
21:14What occurred on October 14th, 1912, almost went down in the history books as an assassination
21:20of a one-time sitting president right here in Milwaukee.
21:23During a campaign stop in Milwaukee on October 14th, 1912, President Theodore Roosevelt was shot
21:29in the chest by would-be assassin John Fleming Schreck.
21:33Miraculously, Roosevelt survived, thanks to a set of coincidences no fiction writer could
21:38invent.
21:39The bullet's path was slowed by the thick contents of his jacket pocket, a 50-page folded speech
21:45and a metal eyeglass case.
21:47Now, you'd think the next stop would be the hospital.
21:49Roosevelt refused.
21:50He insisted his team take him down Kilbourne to the old Milwaukee theater, where the crowd
21:54could not believe what they heard.
21:56He was introduced, and when he walked down, a huge standing ovation.
22:01And he said, you know, I've just been shot, and please be quiet.
22:06I can't speak as loudly as I normally do.
22:09Bleeding but alive, President Roosevelt insisted on delivering the 84-minute speech anyway, telling
22:15the stunned crowd, quote, it takes more than that to kill a bull moose.
22:20Doctors later confirmed that the papers and metal had deflected a fatal wound.
22:24One misplaced bullet, one pocket full of words, and an almost mythic near miss that changed
22:30history's headlines by pure chance.
22:32Roosevelt went on the rest of his life with that bullet still in his chest.
22:36Doctors determined it wasn't a threat to his internal organs.
22:39The gunman, John Schreck, spent the rest of his life in a state prison for the criminally insane.
22:44The Stainer brothers, one kidnapping, one killer.
22:48Kenneth Parnell stops the car, and he goes to a pay phone.
22:52He comes back and tells Stephen, your parents, I just spoke to them.
22:57They no longer want you.
22:58And Parnell then told him that you're going to be my son.
23:01He kept giving him this cough syrup to sedate him.
23:05Some coincidences are so tragic they feel impossible.
23:09In 1972, seven-year-old Stephen Stainer was kidnapped in California and held captive by Kenneth Parnell for more than seven years.
23:17Miraculously, he escaped in 1980, rescuing another abducted child in the process.
23:23Yet tragedy struck twice.
23:25Kerry was very upset.
23:26Maybe he had some guilt because I believe he was supposed to have been with his brother.
23:31Kerry shows signs of troubling behavior.
23:34It seemed as though he had a compulsion with trying to get close to women or be sexual with them,
23:40but he was unable to develop any sort of interpersonal relationships with any women.
23:45In 1999, his older brother Kerry Stainer confessed to murdering four women near Yosemite National Park,
23:52where he worked as a motel handyman.
23:55Two brothers, one a victim of abduction, the other a brutal killer.
23:59The statistical improbability of such intertwined fates stunned even seasoned investigators,
24:04a chilling family coincidence that defies easy explanation.
24:08As far as I know, he's never talked to anyone about the effect Stephen might have had on his crimes.
24:14I'm not sure there is any direct cause and effect.
24:17Stephen could have grown up normal, happy and healthy, and Kerry still would have been a serial killer.
24:23Ann Rule's nice worker was Ted Bundy.
24:26But I thought, well, I'll look at each of his victims, his purported victims,
24:31what was happening in their lives on the day he got them.
24:34Every single one of them was upset or ill or had had a fight or was distracted,
24:40so that she was not paying attention to what was going on around her.
24:45Before The Stranger Beside Me became a landmark of true crime literature,
24:49its author, Ann Rule, had no idea that her friendly co-worker at a Seattle crisis hotline was a future serial killer.
24:56In 1971, she worked night shifts beside Ted Bundy, a charming volunteer who helped take calls from people in distress.
25:04These men seem able, they have a certain type, each one has a certain type.
25:09For Ted, it was women.
25:10A type of victim.
25:11A type of victim.
25:12Ted liked very attractive women of college age with long dark hair parted in the middle.
25:18So that was, he would look for a stranger when he was in a killing mode who fit that type.
25:25They built a genuine friendship, even as Bundy later began a killing spree that would claim dozens of lives across the Pacific Northwest.
25:32When police publicized a suspect named Ted in 1974, Rule privately contacted investigators,
25:39admitting she feared it might be him, but couldn't believe it.
25:42Years later, she turned that conflict into her book's unforgettable title.
25:47Ted, as far as I know, never physically hurt anyone he knew.
25:52But these men seem able to pick out when the victim is vulnerable.
25:56And so I tell women, when you aren't feeling real good, pay extra attention.
26:01She wrote How to Murder Your Husband, then followed her own guidelines.
26:05A Portland romance novelist who once wrote an essay entitled How to Kill Your Husband
26:10was sentenced today for the murder of her husband.
26:13Her case has attracted international attention, and tonight, after an eight-week trial,
26:18the family of the man that she killed receives some sense of closure.
26:22When Portland romance author Nancy Crampton Brophy posted a 2011 blog essay titled How to Murder Your Husband,
26:29it seemed like tongue-in-cheek writing advice.
26:32She outlined motivations, methods, and practical tips.
26:36But seven years later, those words became evidence in a real murder trial.
26:40In 2018, Brophy's husband, Daniel Brophy, a beloved culinary instructor,
26:45was shot twice at the Oregon Culinary Institute.
26:48Dan's mom sent in a statement to be read in court.
26:51You were part of our family for over 25 years. Was that relationship all deception?
26:56My heart breaks if this is true.
26:59Dan Brophy's family spoke in court about their struggle to deal with the murder's aftermath.
27:03The years of deceit have spanned decades from learning that your solution to my father being married to my mother was I can fix that.
27:12Investigators uncovered surveillance footage placing Nancy near the scene and discovered she owned the same model gun used in the crime.
27:20During her 2022 trial, prosecutors cited her essay as a window into motive and premeditation.
27:26Brophy was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
27:30You are a monster, and I am ashamed that I have to admit to my children that people like you walk amongst us undetected.
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27:53Two staircase deaths, one man in the middle.
27:58So she is found at the bottom of the stairs, 38 injuries to her body, deep lacerations on her skull, face, back, hands, arms and wrists.
28:10So extensive injuries.
28:13What happened? Did you push her down the stairs?
28:16No, I did not.
28:17In 2001, novelist Michael Peterson was charged with the murder of his wife, Kathleen Peterson, after she was found dead at the bottom of the staircase in their North Carolina home.
28:27The case became infamous thanks to the true crime series, The Staircase, but few realized the chilling coincidence buried in Peterson's past.
28:35Peterson was charged a year and a half ago.
28:37Two weeks ago, the body of Margaret and Martha's birth mother, Elizabeth Ratliff, was exhumed.
28:42The girls always believed their mother died after falling down the stairs from a stroke.
28:47Yesterday, the Chapel Hill medical examiner completed an autopsy, concluding Elizabeth Ratliff was murdered, blunt force trauma.
28:54Nearly two decades earlier, in 1985, another woman close to him, Elizabeth Ratliff, a family friend living in Germany, had also died after allegedly falling down a staircase.
29:06Peterson had been the last person to see her alive, and both women were found with eerily similar head injuries.
29:12Ratliff's body was exhumed during Peterson's trial, revealing striking forensic parallels.
29:18All of this absorbed by Ratliff's two birth daughters, both in their 20s, both trying to attend college and find some sense of normalcy.
29:26How do you deal with the reality that Michael, your father, may be convicted and put in prison for the rest of his life?
29:32I can't believe that any jury would sit there and convict my dad.
29:36Which disturbing coincidence on our list shocked you the most?
29:39Are there any true crime cases we missed?
29:41Be sure to let us know in the comments below.
29:45Let us know in the comments below.
29:47Father JJ are here, ì—† COMMISSION, atVessence-ind Jordan speaking.
29:49Welcome to the
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