CLEWS Your Home for Historic True Crime

Stop blaming the economy for family annihilators

Cases of "family annihilators" - people who murder their families and sometimes themselves as well - have been much in the news lately. Most recently, in Maryland, Christopher Wood killed his wife, children, and himself, and William Parente did the same. The press has always devoted considerable coverage to these cases ever since James Yates became the first American to murder his family in 1781.

It is puzzling to me, though not surprising, that some try to pair these headlines with others on our front pages today. As the Washington Post headline recently put it, Some Link Economy With Spate of Killings. This purely speculative hypothesis is supported by criminologist James Alan Fox. He remarks: "There's a combination of feeling despair and hopelessness at the same time as a certain degree of anger and blame."

Another university expert, Richard Gelles, also blames these cases on the economy. In another Washington Post piece about Christopher Wood, the expert remarked: "This is a very rare but patterned way that people respond to economic reversals in their lives."

I'm sorry, but I think that is complete rot. At least the Washington Post was cautious enough to quote a more creditable criminologist, Shawn Bushway, who responded that the guessing and supposing on the question of the motive of family annihilators is "like reading tea leaves."

I thoroughly agree with Bushway. In a case of a family annihilator, by definition, the most critical witnesses are dead. We can never, ever know what happened behind closed doors. Was there violence? Was there sexual abuse? Was there a threat of divorce? Mental illness? The list of possibilities is endless. Can a serious financial setback be a factor, or an immediate trigger? Sure. But the motive?

We can look for patterns, but they will always elude us. This is still an extremely rare crime, despite what recent coverage might lead some to believe. We seem to forget that the United States is approaching a population of a third of a billion people.  

Even if a family was experiencing financial difficulties or even profound financial distress, that cannot ever serve as an adequate explanation for motive. Otherwise you'd reasonably expect to see a spate of these cases in Michigan, which has lost 240,000 auto jobs this decade alone, and the decade isn't over. At least you'd expect to see some of these cases in Detroit right now. Last I checked, the unemployment rate here was twenty-two percent and rising. The city is profoundly depressed and in great despair as Chrysler and GM edge toward bankruptcy. Bankruptcy!  So...?

But more importantly, there is no objective proof that family annihilators are more common today than they were in good times. I know of at least one case of an annihilator who murdered his family for, he said, economic reasons, yet he left a fortune in the bank.

One study quoted in the Wikipedia entry on family annihilators actually concluded that the motive for such crimes is "to stop their children's suffering." That is preposterous on its face. It may be what some annihilators have offered as an excuse for their barbaric acts, something they tell themselves to justify it -- Andrea Yates said something along these lines - but it is hardly the motive.

Yet if you have any credentials, and if you're willing to go on the air and say that our economy is causing a massive outbreak of family annihilations, you'll get plenty of time. Recently on National Public Radio, another purported expert was given several minutes to claim a connection between the economy and family annihilators.

I think Corporal Mike Hill, Baltimore County PD, commenting on the deaths of the Parente family, got it perfectly correct when he commented on the killer's motive: ""We have not reached that determination and we may never reach that determination."

I hope these experts will stop blaming the economy for these crimes. Why give the annihilator the excuse? The economy made him do it? Please. The responsibility ought to rest entirely on the shoulders of the criminals who betray the love and trust of their families with their truly senseless acts.

Another annihilator, and revisiting George Hassell

Karthik Rajaram of California, despondent over financial setbacks, murdered his wife, children, and mother-in-law this week.

The press coverage of the crime links this tragedy to the economic crisis gripping the world.  As a TV newsman remarked, it is, perhaps, a sign of the times.

That does seem quite probable. It is no coincidence, in my view of things, that a man who placed such importance on living in a gated community and driving a luxury car would find himself driven to such an act by financial losses. Apparently unable to live a less than prestigious lifestyle, he became suicidal and homicidal.

I have studied historical reports of family annihilators, and they do seem to spike in the 1890s, a time of economic difficulties worldwide. I have found many cases from that time. But other cases seem to bear no relation to the economy. The bottom line is that the economy may well be a factor in certain cases, but it does not adequately explain them.

These cases can be roughly divided into several types, by my reckoning, and often overlap:

* Severe and prolonged mental illness explains some cases, like the Amityville horror.

* Some cases are the culmination of years of profound physical abuse in a home, and the murders are the ultimate act of domestic violence. I think of Charlie Lawson.

* Greed motivates some to insure and then kill their families, including Frances Elaine Newton, put to death in Texas three years ago, and Robin Lee Row, on death row in Idaho.

* Some of these crimes can be triggered by financial difficulties. This case in California looks like one; John List was another. I believe that these sorts of cases are actually much less common today than they were in days past. The traditional male role placed extraordinary burdens on men that thankfully their partners help shoulder today. Even where there is a financial challenge, though, that can never fully explain these acts.

* Some cases evolve out of sexual abuse of children; when caught, some molesters wipe out the whole family. I think of George Hassell, who did it twice -- once in California and again in Texas. The Whittier Museum in Whittier, California, has opened an exhibit on that city's crime history. It includes accounts of George Hassell's annihilation of his California family. Frank Girardot of the San Gabriel Tribune recently wrote a feature on the exhibition. Meanwhile, a book is in the works about the Hassell case; I'll have more details here as it nears publication.

I think the media is correct to assume that this California case fits the historical pattern. I wouldn't wonder if, in these trying times, we start to see more of these cases, even if it's not always safe to presume that financial troubles alone triggered the rampage. Hopefully the press will cover these matters intelligently and present assumptions as such, because no matter what the contents of a suicide note, sometimes we never learn what was truly going on behind closed doors.

CLEWS Interviews True Crime Author Matthew Randazzo V

Author Matthew Randazzo V took on a challenge when he decided to write a biography of professional wrestler turned family annihilator Chris Benoit. Phoenix Books recently published the result. It's Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit and the Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry [Amazon; B&N], in which the author connects the wrestling industry's widespread use of steroids, painkillers, drugs, and booze to the double murder-suicide that shocked wrestling fans last summer.

The book garnered strong reaction from several quarters, though most reviews have been positive, and the author is credited with bringing some ugly facts into the light of day and writing a "must-have" for fans of wrestling. The publisher dubs it a "shocking exposé" that "delves deep into the scandals and cover-ups of the global wrestling industry -- where drug addictions, sociopathic superstars, and broken families are the norm and situations like Benoit's are all-too-often ignored."

CLEWS recently had a chance to ask a few questions of the author, who was kind enough to provide these replies. Here's our Q&A.

Q. This is a tough, tough case, a terrible act of the ultimate domestic violence, and the death of Chris Benoit's wife and son was such a tragedy, and yet a foreseeable one. Did you have trouble wrestling with the horrific nature of this crime? How did you handle it in the book?

A. There is no easy way to write about an act as terrifying and grotesque as a husband murdering his wife and small child. Personally, I felt my handling this crime was actually made easier when I saw how insensitive, dishonest, and inaccurate some of the media coverage was; for example, when some cable news hosts blamed the victim, Nancy Benoit, or tried to blame Benoit's actions on his steroid abuse, it motivated me and made me feel like it was my duty to write the honest and ugly truth about what transpired.

As a writer, it's my policy that no story is so tragic or gruesome that it would be better to cover up or euphemize the truth; in Ring of Hell, I simply set out to discover and reveal the truth about Chris Benoit's life, the industry which conspired with his poor decision-making to lead to his mental and physical downfall, and the crimes he committed. 

Q.  I understand that his book comes down hard on the pro wrestling industry. Do you think your book tells fans of wrestling something they didn't know about it?

A. In Ring of Hell, I definitively show that pro wrestling is an extremely unsafe, unhealthy, and physically and mentally destructive industry. While many wrestling fans are aware of this and some of the stories in Ring of Hell, I personally conducted dozens of exclusive interviews with major wrestling industry names and have broken countless stories in Ring of Hell that have never been published anywhere else.

I have had hardcore fans, World Wrestling Entertainment employees, and even a few wrestling legends tell me that they learned something from Ring of Hell, so most wrestling fans and certainly all casual readers will find a great deal of illuminating information about the pro wrestling business in Ring of Hell.

Q. Are you a fan of true crime? Who are your favorite authors? Favorite titles?

I am a fan of true crime books; in American organized crime, my area of expertise, I'd choose Nick Pileggi and Ovid Demaris as my favorite. I obtain my primary inspiration as a writer when writing true crime from the crime fiction of writers such as James Ellroy (whose American Underworld Trilogy is incredible) and Elmore Leonard.

Q.Are you working on another book? Will it be in the same theme?

I have recently come to an agreement with Phoenix Books to release my next two books, which are memoirs I've co-written with major American mafiosi.

The first to be released in Spring of 2009, Breakshot, is the story of Japanese-American gangster Kenny "Kenji" Gallo, whose incredible underworld career began as a teenage cocaine smuggler in Pablo Escobar's empire and ended as a major construction racketeer in New York's Colombo Mafia Family.

In Summer of 2009 will come Mr. New Orleans, the first book to ever break the code of secrecy in the New Orleans Mafia Family.  Mr. New Orleans is the story of Frenchy Brouillette, a top political fixer, convicted labor racketeer, and the operator of the South's preeminent call-girl for over three decades.

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For more, visit the author's website at http://www.matthewrandazzo.com or the publisher's page,  visit http://www.phoenixbooksandaudio.com/books/bks_prodcuts/ringofhell.htm.

The True Crime Genre Circa 1570

My dearest reader, this is unfortunately, may God have mercy, one piece of horrifying news after another ... so that my heart nearly breaks and my eyes fill with tears. I don't know how it seems to you, for there are many who will refuse to believe, since it does not affect them and appears to be false and invented.

-A German true crime author, writing in 1582

True crime stories started rolling off the presses as soon as presses were invented. A recent article delving into some of Germany's oldest machine-printed crime accounts contains some surprises for those who think Truman Capote or William Roughead "invented" true crime, such as the morons who wrote the absurd and error-laden Wikipedia entry on the true crime genre.

In a long piece exploring in detail early typeset German true crime accounts, New Jersey history professor Joy Wiltenburg sets the cultural record straight.

And what were these Germans reading in the late 1500s? Of all the crimes in the calendar, which captivated Germany in that time? Most of the accounts, says the professor, told stories of family annihilators. "Murder within the family was by far the most common theme, accounting for over half of the reports," she says.

The professor has a theory about why this particular rare form of murder dominated the early German genre: economics. "In their evocation of the horror of household bloodshed, a number of works pointed also to economic strain: The children were hungry and reminded the raging father of his economic failure; the greedy youths demanded their inheritance; the father's anger over debts drove him to violence."

In the piece she also explains:

* The authors and collectors of early publications were often ministers interested in exploring moral questions. "Virtually all crime accounts published during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries connected their stories with an edifying Christian message," the professor notes. (I am reminded of the Ogden Standard-Examiner, which produced fascinating true crime accounts for decades, not coincidentally a Mormon mecca, birthplace of Donny & Marie. It too focused on charting, with specific examples, "the descent and destruction of the human spirit.")

* The authors probably did not "make money off murder," that tired old charge. Professor Wiltenburg says true crime, from its earliest days, "almost certainly brought little reward to authors."

* The accounts were written for and purchased by the upper classes.

* A great emphasis was placed on the truthfulness of the accounts; it was strictly a non-fiction genre, or sold as such, at least.

* The accounts were extremely gory. (They might not even see print today, except as fiction.)

* Many accounts heaped praise upon police officials, singling them out for their pursuit of justice.

* Authors focused on the victims; "the perpetrators were usually not examined closely as individuals, nor was the audience offered vicarious entry into their minds."

* Some of the most famous cases were revisited decades later; one account, republished many times, told the story of a family annihilated in 1504.

Point being, the true crime genre is much older than some would have it - as is the historic true crime genre.

John List is Dead

The man whose name is synonymous with family annihilation is dead at the age of 82. Steve Huff has details.

For more: Associated Content's The Pursuit, Capture, and Trial of John Emil List by Timothy Benford

The Tragedy at Scotts Mills

Most of the town heard the series of shotgun blasts. Some did not learn until the next day what horror had been inflicted on all of them. Since then, many residents of Scotts Mills, Oregon have written of that day in 1995 and the effect that family annihilator David Whitson has had on this small Quaker community.

Chris Anderson has written Life & death at a distance.

Peggy Senger Parsons has written I Saw Heaven Answer Hell.

I have tried to learn what became of Whitson without luck.  He is apparently not incarcerated in either Oregon or Washington. One hopes he's paying penance elsewhere.

Update, June 2008: A Clews reader has learned his fate.

According to http://www.thestorypage.net/time.html, maintained by Margaret V. Doran, David Whitson hanged himself in his cell in the Oregon State Penitentiary in June of 1996 while he was serving a life sentence.

Old Clipping of the Week

This story comes from the files of the venerated Kansas City Star. Unfortunately the digitized archive for the Star is no longer online (sniffle) but someone was kind enough to send me a page containing the most remarkable story of family annihilator Lowell Lee Andrews, who makes a minor appearance in In Cold Blood as he awaits his execution.

 

                                                                                                

Genre News & A Review of Scoundrels to the Hoosegow

Still Recoiling from the Charlie Lawson Tragedy When Charlie Lawson slaughtered his family and took his own life on Christmas, 1929, it affected an entire community. Generations later, the effects of that devastating mass murder are still heartfelt.

CLEWS includes a couple of posts devoted to the case, both inspired by the documentary A Christmas Family Tragedy, a new film that explores the case in depth. The comments left by folks on one post have gotten very heated. Perhaps feelings were stirred by the recent passing of one woman who was interviewed for the film, Dorothy Montgomery. Perhaps those feelings have been there for decades.

I debated what on earth to do about it (it still surprises me when people leave sharp comments for one another on this site; picture me startled, looking up from a dusty old book at the sound of raised voices coming from the back of the library). I was inclined to edit or delete some of them. But at some point the depth of emotion generated by a thing like this becomes part of the tragedy. After thinking hard about it I decided to let the comments stand for that reason.

Another Annihilator Professor Mitchel Roth at Sam Houston State University, an historian of crime and justice who has authored several books, is now writing a book about notorious multiple murderer George Hassell, per a note the professor left on the Clews summary of the Hassell story. That is one case that ought to be more widely known because its lessons in the nature of human misbehavior would surprise a lot of people. Professor Roth's report will be the first book on the case.

A Blog for Chester Gillette & Grace Brown Lizzie has several, the Villisca case has one, and now there is a blog devoted to the case of Chester Gillette. It is found at http://bloggillette.blogspot.com.

Gillette was the most beautiful man the United States ever executed. New York was actually the one that ordered him dead; the Empire State was more strict back in Chester's day when it came to punishing the premeditated murder of the inconveniently pregnant.

His story was also the inspiration for the classic Theodore Dreiser novel An American Tragedy (yep, long before Truman Capote, our best novelists penned fictionalized accounts of our worst cases).

Photo: Auburn Prison, where Chester Gillette was executed in 1908. Via

Thumbs Up for Scoundrels Your county courthouse has born witness to your town's greatest dramas, to tales of murder, assault, adultery, madness, and other sins small and large.

But after a dollop of that gritty business, who wouldn't want to retire to the closest lounge for more lighthearted fare in the theme?

If you're interested in true crime tales told by insiders, alas, few books by criminal lawyers show the inside workings of that human gristmill known as a court of law. Occasionally a prosecutor (or very occasionally a defense attorney) will write a memoir. They usually carry titles that bespeak dour themes. Recent books include Bronx D.A.: True Stories from the Sex Crimes and Domestic Violence Unit by Sarena Straus and "Ready for the People": My Most Chilling Cases as a Prosecutor by Marissa N. Batt and Johnnie Cochran.

Now a prosecutor has shared his own best tavern stories in a delightful new book from the University of Missouri Press. It's Scoundrels to the Hoosegow: Perry Mason Moments and Entertaining Cases from the Files of a Prosecuting Attorney by an experienced, elected prosecutor from Missouri, Morley Swingle. I was taken with the title and theme and put several questions to the author, who was kind enough to grant an interview to CLEWS (which you can find here).

Now I've read and enjoyed the book. With more than a quarter century of experience, the author had plenty of gems to share. Each chapter begins with quips on prosecutors from the smartest lawyers and thinkers of recent times. The author includes not only his own most eye-popping courtroom moments (and there are some doozies here) but the best stories of his closest colleagues as well. My favorite is the Case of the Millionaire Murderer.

Some of my favorite bits:

"Had Oprah Winfrey chosen to be a courtroom lawyer, she could have been the Clarence Darrow of our generation."

On a man representing himself in a criminal case: "Then it was Bixby's turn [to give a closing argument]. Ethical rules prohibiting prosecutors from lying to the jury did not apply to him; he could tell a few whoppers without worrying about a perjury charge. Bixby was off and running. It was his chance to testify without being cross-examined about his prior convictions. Truth be damned! He soared like an eagle."

On introducing a new character in a murder drama: "The fact that this biker was someone a murderer would call when he needed help disposing of a corpse told you basically all you needed to know about the man."

On meth: "Methamphetamine, for those law-abiding, non-news-watching readers who may be unfamiliar with the substance, is a highly addictive drug made by cooking the ephedrine contained in routine cold medication with such appetizing edibles as Liquid Drano, anhydrous ammonia, and lithium batteries."

I learned and laughed so much I almost wish I had entered criminal law instead of insurance defense. (Almost....) And I appreciated the reminder, applying to everything important, that preparation is a virtue. Congratulations go out to an author who not only found but shared the sort of precious anecdotes usually only heard over a round.

Charlie Lawson Songs and Contextualizing the Annihilator

It's how mountain folk respond to terrible mysteries: with music.

The producers of the documentary A Christmas Family Tragedy, which told the story of the shame of North Carolina, family annihilator Charlie Lawson, have put together a CD of songs inspired by the tragedy. 

Last year saw the release of a new documentary about the case (see the Clews review) and now the soundtrack has just been issued, which includes music from the film plus more.

The CD, A Christmas Family Tragedy Soundtrack: Music From & Inspired By Legends of the 1929 Lawson Family Murders, includes songs like The Murder of the Lawson Family, The Song of the Lawson Family Murder and other musical explorations of the case.

Why music? Some may wonder. What's the purpose of writing a ballad about a mass murder?

As a heavy metal musician with a true crime obsession recently explained on In Cold Blog, "Murder and true crime have long had a place in popular music. As long as there have been horrific violent acts against humanity, there have been songs recounting them."

And this was a horrific, violent act. As the producers of the Charlie Lawson film and CD explained --

"A Christmas Family Tragedy" explores the Lawson Family Massacre of Christmas Day, 1929.  On that day, respected tobacco farmer Charlie Lawson brutally murdered his wife and 6 of his 7 children before committing suicide; one of the most horrible and mysterious mass murders in North Carolina history.

"The Lawson murders became immortalized in a classic bluegrass murder ballad, ghost stories, tours of the crime scene, and legends known coast to coast.  But this southern documentary shows for the first time the real tragedy: the story of the families' devastation, the continuing effect it has on the community, and the ongoing plague of domestic violence in rural areas."

The film about the family annihilator, who was not insane despite the number of people who sought comfort in that thought, taught me to look at these cases not as rare and unusual and impenetrable homicides but as the extreme end of a continuum we call domestic violence.

Recently I was struck by the news coverage of another man who murdered his wife and child in June - professional wrestler Chris Benoit. Once again the media focused on this crime as though it had never happened before. There was no context -- there rarely is. The media focused not on how this case is similar to so many others but on what was different - the man's use of steroids - as though that could explain his crimes.

Eric Calhoun, co-producer of the Charlie Lawson film, was thinking the same thing. He recently wrote a private note to me that expressed this frustration. I was struck by his analysis and the reasons he cites for remembering cases like Lawson's.

Sometimes it sucks to be relevant again in the news. It's sad while everyone, including the DA, holds their heads in their hands and says things like "I don't think we'll ever be able to wrap our minds around this," we can see all the same events in the Lawson murders, and many other family murder-suicides, and why we still need to study the dark parts of our history to make these tragedies a thing of the past.

In both cases, the community talks so much about what a GOOD MAN the killer was, even to the point of the WWE televising a 3-hour tribute to Benoit. It's just as common that an abuser goes out of their way to be a good neighbor as a drunken a-hole.

Even the bizarre details of the case make much more sense in the context of domestic homicides. Benoit placed Bibles by his wife and child; Charlie Lawson put pillows under their heads. This ritual of forgiveness, protection, love is called "undoing" and is particular to domestic homicides.

Also, the search for answers always looks at excuses for why such a good man would suddenly lose it. In the Lawson case, it was the mattock that people say Charlie hit himself with. In Benoit, the media is getting righteous about steroid use in wrestling, using 'roid-rage' to explain away Benoit's actions. Instead, we should be focusing on his history of violence against his wife and face the fact that there WERE warning signs.

Now maybe you or I couldn't do anything for Nancy Benoit, but the stats are bad - odds are we all know someone getting beat, and by educating ourselves to the warning signs, we can do something for those around us.

Some proceeds from the Charlie Lawson projects will help domestic violence victims. The CD is available from http://www.bodproductions.com/.

Early American Annihilators

Husband & I were awake at 3h ys morn by mrss Heartwel and Gillbard who brot us ye horrible tydings that Capt Purington had murdered all his famely Except his Son James who must have Shared the Same fate had he not been So fortunate as to make his Escape ....

--From the 1806 diary of Martha Ballard

Patriarchal familicide – the slaughter of a family by the man of the house – is a very, very rare form of homicide. It is, in my opinion, the worst, the most unthinkable crime in the calendar.

On those occasions when it does occur, it generates a lot of media attention. Invariably the media publishes nonsense about how this crime is becoming more common today. These sentiments are usually mouthed by ignorant reporters asserting guesswork as fact; these folks also (coincidently?) tend to take a narrow view of the Second Amendment.

Unfortunately, American history is rife with examples of the phenomenon. We have always experienced this form of homicide, and we have struggled for hundreds of years to understand it. Centuries before the FBI developed the science of “behavioral profiling,” students of such crimes have tried to classify the phenomenon according to motive.

The most infamous family annihilator from early U.S. history is James Purrinton (sometimes Purrington), who slaughtered his wife and children in 1806 -- the oldest boy escaped (just as in the Charlie Lawson case). The crime is well known today because the story was a bestseller at the time and many copies of Horrid Massacre!! Sketches of the Life of Captain James Purrinton still survive today, easily available at dozens of libraries across the country, and a second contemporary book on the case (which went into three editions) is also easy to find in libraries. The famous Horrid Massacre cover is above.

A much more personal account of the crime also survived the centuries. Purrinton's neighbor was Martha Ballard (Wikipedia), a midwife whose daily diary was the subject of A Midwife's Tale, a Pulitzer-winning book a few years ago by famous historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.

Purrinton's massacre is not the sole early example. Social historian Daniel Cohen wrote a fascinating article about early annihilators that appeared in The Journal of Social History more than a decade ago. Thanks to this miraculous internet of ours, the article is online and free.

Cohen studied the stories of seven familicides between 1780 and 1850 and comes to some interesting conclusions. I happen to disagree with some and wonder about the rest. Cohen found seven early broadsides and pamphlets detailing family murders in:

• 1781 (Yates, New York);
• 1782 (Beadle, Connecticut);
• 1784 (Womble, Virginia);
• 1805 (Clemmens, Virginia);
• 1806 (Purrinton, Maine);
• 1835 (Cowain, Ohio);
• 1836 (Young, Pennsylvania).

Cohen lays out the "profiles" of a family annihilator generated 200 years ago and then adds a list of common denominators that he has found in these early cases. Cohen says the murders evince "extreme rage, brutality, even sadism." Each man suffered either (1) hallucinations (i.e. psychosis) or (2) severe depression and suicidal thoughts or (3) delusional jealousy. I think it an appropriate framework, but it seems to be incomplete.

No one, as of yet, has come up with a definitive typology for this crime, and Cohen's proposed typology does not explain them all. Unfortunately, some cases fit nowhere in this theoretical structure, such as the Jeffrey MacDonald case, where none of the classic signs and symptoms of the family annihilator -- psychosis, religious delusion, severe depression, suicidal history and so on -- make their appearance. (Disagree with me? Read the accounts of these 7 early annihilators and tell me how MacDonald compares to these men.)

He also expresses some wonder that these crimes were "curiously clustered" in certain time periods, and expresses the view that cultural forces played a strong role in the crimes. I'm not so sure that's true at all; there are dozens more examples of this crime in American history than Cohen has mentioned. But the article is a fascinating exploration of the nature of this crime and a reminder that the full expression of the deepest human cruelty is not a new phenomenon, and we are still struggling, hundreds of years later, to fully understand it.

For more:

Read the text of the inquest into the Purrinton murders

Read Martha Ballard's diary on the Purrinton murders

Strange Maine on the Purrinton murders