Sunday 27 September 2015

The Black magic murders of Ahmad Suradji:


(Images found at Ahmad Suradji (Sorcerer From Hell) Documentary )
Ahmad Suradji, also known as Nasib Kelewang, was a self-proclaimed black magic master who ritualistically killed 42 women and girls over an 11 year period.
 A cattle breeder by trade, he lived just outside of Medan in Indonesia, where many women would make the journey to his house seeking guidance and assistance in matters of health, love and finance.
Suradji would generally charge between $200-$300 for his services, with most of his female clients longing to be wealthy or attractive and some asking him to perform black magic rituals to keep their significant others from cheating. 
As a Dukun, or Shaman, they believed, just as the vast majority of the Indonesian population does, that black magic could help them. 

A revered position, many Dukuns make a living with this occupation, and although primarily healers, they are used for a variety of reasons; some are exorcists, some perform blessings on new businesses, and farm lands and on individuals, and some can see the future through spirits.
 Some Dukuns even offer a darker service of casting curses and hexes and spells for revenge.

Suradji was something of a sorcerer, and between the years of 1986 – 1997 he murdered 42 of his clients in ritual slayings that he believed would ultimately make him more powerful.
Inspired by a dream he had in 1988, in which his deceased father visited him, Suradji would lead the woman and girls out to a sugar cane plant on the outskirts of Medan, and bury them up to their waists in earth before strangling them with a cord. Once dead, he would strip the bodies of the women naked and bury them facing in the direction of his house.
As instructed by his father in the dream, he would also consume the victim’s saliva.

His objective was to kill 70 victims in this way, but he was caught at just over half way through his mission at confirmed victim number 42, after the discovery of a body, later identified as Sri Kemala Dewi, by a local man at the sugar cane plantation.

Investigators found clothing linked to over 20 women who had been reported as missing in and around the local area. All of the victims were between the ages of 11-39 years old. If Suradji was running low on clientele, it was said that he would also kill local sex workers to get closer to his goal.
Despite the official recorded body count of 42 victims, it is possible that the actual number could be almost double that.

Suradji was convicted, along with one of his three wives (all sisters) who had helped him hide the bodies.
Despite protests by Amnesty International, he was executed by firing squad in 2008.


Sources: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/indonesia/2286216/Black-Magic-Killer-executed-for-42-murders.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Suradji
http://www.dukunindonesia.com/

Tuesday 22 September 2015

True scary stories to keep you awake at night:




Lazy Masquerade is a youtube channel that regularly creates and uploads videos that narrate scary true stories from around the internet sourced from places such as “Reddit: Let’s not meet” as well as from original viewer submissions and online articles. 

Each video is themed and with such titles  as:

 “Disturbing Cult stories” [ X
“Disturbing REAL lonely hearts killers” [ X
and “Scary stories to keep you up at night” [ X

(Click the "X" to view the video's on the channel)

Although Lazy Masquerade is not the only channel of this nature, it is my personal favorite. 

If you’re interested in browsing other users with a similar style of content, be sure to check out:

 Good luck sleeping tonight!

The man who married Jane Doe:

DOE HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED.
(Thanks for the heads up Mike in Dallas)




Edit: Just remembered this case and intend to go back to it with some more sources and updates etc. Stay tuned.

Lori Erica Ruff ("née": Kennedy) was a private and introverted woman.
In 2003, the tall, pretty brunette married a man named Blake Ruff after meeting him at a church bible study group in East Texas.
They eloped in Dallas, as Lori rejected the idea of a well-attended traditional wedding and the newspaper announcement that came with it.
She never warmed to her family in law and spent a lot of time alone, also working from her computer at home as a marketing consultant.

Lori was always evasive when questioned about her childhood and past, stating only that both her parents were deceased and that she had no living relatives.
Her husband didn’t push her for answers or attempt to make her open up in any way.

They tried for a baby, but Lori miscarried several times, before finally giving birth to a daughter in 2008.
She was very protective of her child, and never allowed anyone to babysit.
She spent time with her daughter, dressing up and frequenting tea shops as she always liked to do.

Problems arose in their relationship, causing Blake to move out of the marital home in 2010.
He moved back to his family home and ordered a divorce.

Lori began to have a meltdown; she lost weight and received counseling at a nearby church, where she would ramble and repeat to the pastor on the subject of her flaws and problems and questioned what was wrong with her and why her marriage had deteriorated.
She would fidget and repeat herself and stare at her open palms and the back of her long hands.

In 2010 Blake’s father discovered the body of Lori in Blake’s car, a black Tahoe, outside of their family home.
She had committed suicide with a shotgun to the head.
She had two letters on her person; one for Blake and one for her daughter with a note that it be opened on her 18th birthday.
According to the report, the letters were nothing but pages of incoherent rambling.

During a search of the Ruff’s marital home, which was in very poor condition inside, scattered with paper scrawling’s of conscious commentary from the hand of Lori, the police found a safe box at the bottom of her closet.

Blake noted that when they were living together Lori was adamant that he never open the box and that it was personal. As usual, Blake didn’t question it or push her as to why, he simply accepted it.
An officer jammed the box open and was shocked by the contents.

Inside were various documents.
One of which was a certificate in which Lori had legally changed her name, from Becky Sue Turner, To Lori Erica Kennedy.
The only problem was, that Becky Sue turner had died many years ago in Fife, of asphyxiation in a house fire. She was only two years old.
Some digging revealed an article on the tragedy.

Becky Sue Turners birth and death certificates were also in the box.
Lori had apparently taken over the identity of Becky Sue only a month or two after the death.
She had ordered a copy of the birth certificate and knew that since Becky sue had died in a state that she wasn’t born in, it would be less likely that she would get caught taking over her identity.
  
From there she got an I.D Card for the state of Idaho stating that she was 18 years old and went on to legally change her name to Lori Erica Kennedy and obtained a social security card.
She got a GED and a degree in business from the University of Texas.

There was a letter of reference signed by a man named Roger Steinbeck, who claimed that Lori had worked for him “since high school until 1988”. However the letter was vague and had no mention of any specific date and what Lori’s actual role or duties were.
The letter was written on hotel stationary from “The oriental hotel” in Bangkok, Thailand.

The hotel is an actual establishment (Now the mandolin Oriental hotel) and one of the first five star hotels built in the city. It was host to many celebrities back in the day, such as Audrey Hepburn, John Steinbeck, Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson.
Officers contacted Roger Steinbeck, but were met with a dead end and reported that he didn’t exist.
It is not known if Lori ever traveled over sea’s, however she didn’t have a passport under the name Lori Erica Kennedy until 1990, and no stamps for Thailand were found in it.  



Amongst the documents were two other sheets of paper; one with notes, scrawled phone numbers and names, and one with dates and the letters D and M, leading people to believe she had possibly been working out dates to indicate ages of her new identities parents.



When her finger prints and face were ran through data bases nothing showed up.

In fact, finding out anything about Lori pre 1988 was impossible.
The only other information that investigators were able to find out through talking to an old acquaintance was that she had previously worked as a dancer in a gentleman’s club. The autopsy revealed that she had breast implants, but had gotten them as Lori and not her previous identity.

Some people speculate that Lori was running from a tragic past, or was in a witness protection program, but nobody knows the truth.
Lori Erica Kennedy took her secret to the grave.

(sources and images: seattletimes, dailynews, websluethes, reddit, doenetwork)




Wednesday 16 September 2015

The Tourist from hell


(Image: Wikipedia)

John Martin Scripps, dubbed by the media as “The tourist from hell”, was an English-born spree killer executed in Singapore for his crimes in 1996.
Following the suicide of his father, Scripps began to have difficulties in school and eventually dropped out at the age of 15 and went on to work various jobs in order to raise funds for traveling.
He went on to murder three tourists while traveling between Thailand and Singapore in the mid 90’s.
He murdered a man by the name of Gerard Lowe in Singapore, as well as a woman named Shelia Demude and her son Darin in Thailand.

Scripps had a history of previous arrests on his record, rewarded to him as a result of the various burglaries he committed along with one count of indecent assault in the 70’s.
He was eventually imprisoned for three years in the 80’s while traveling in Mexico with a woman he had married, on account of similar crimes.
 Only months before completing his sentence, he escaped only to burgle again and was sentenced to another three years, causing upset in his marriage.
His wife finally divorced him and remarried. However Scripps harassed her new husband upon his release.

Having done his time in prison and been released, Scripps officially changed his name to John Martin by deed poll.
He began running heroin for a syndicate between Asia and Europe in the late 80’s and was apprehended at Heathrow airport, where the arresting officers found he was carrying a key on him. 
It was discovered that they key opened a deposit box in a bank in Singapore, and contained one million dollars’ worth of heroin. Scripps was once again put behind bars where he was sentenced to seven years. He escaped again, was caught, and true to form, escaped once more.

Scripps found himself locked up at Albany on the Isle of Wight where he learned the butchering skills that he would later use to dismember his victims.

After transferring to another prison, he escaped for the last time. His mother, having sold all of his possessions, handed over the money in order for Scripps to travel overseas to evade being arrested again. He applied for another passport, using the documents of another inmate named Simon James Davis, and ended up in Mexico again as John Martin, where he reported his passport missing to the British Embassy and got a replacement. 

From there travelled to Singapore via San Francisco. The date was March 8th, 1995.
Despite the official report that Scripps murdered three people, it is speculated that murdered many more in the USA and Mexico.

His technique would be to act like a tourist, strike up conversations with other white tourists in airports or aboard planes, and follow them to their accommodation. He would stay in the same hotels and get himself into their rooms under on pretext or another and shock them with an electroshock weapon, before hitting them over the heads and dismembering in hotel bathrooms, using the butchering skills he had picked up in prison.

The motive was most likely money, as withdrawals for large sums of money on the victims credit cards were made after their murders.

Scripps murdered a South African man named Gerard Lowe in a hotel room they were sharing in Singapore. Posing as a tourist at the airport and using an assumed name, Scripps suggested they share a hotel room and Lowe agreed. They rented room 1511 at the River view hotel.

Later, Scripps went to the reception desk and asked the receptionist to erase Lowe’s name, claiming that he had kicked him out as he found out Lowe was a homosexual.

Two days later the dismembered limbs of Gerard Lowe washed up at Clifford Pier, including his thighs and torso. His head and arms, however, were never located.

A couple of days later, on the 15th, Scripps took a flight to Thailand, where he made the acquaintance of mother and son Sheila and Darin Damude. The three were seated in the same row and again checked in the same hotel, Nilly’s Marina Inn, overlooking Patpong beach. They check into rooms on the same floor, opposite each other, with Scripps in room 48 and the Damudes in 43.

The Damudes were never seen alive again following their breakfast the next morning.
Scripps informed the hotel that they had checked out already, and that he wanted to transfer to room 43 where he would pick up the bill.

(Image: murderpedia) 

He took a flight back to Singapore on the 19th, the very same day the skulls of the mother and son were discovered. Other body parts were discovered over the following day’s most likely belonging to Sheila, but the remains of Darin were never recovered.

Many victims linked to Scripps remained unconfirmed. He is thought to have murdered people in London and Mexico as well as in the United States. Large withdrawals from the banks of the victims in Scripps name were made after their deaths and disappearances heavily indicating his responsibility.

Upon arrest the tourist from hell managed to smash a glass panel in the police interview room and attempted to take his life with a shard of the broken glass in fear of the death penalty. 
The attempt was failed and he later recovered in hospital. 
The investigators found the passports of the victims in Scripps possession, each one with a passport photograph of him affixed to it. They also recovered the stolen credit cards along with a haul of weapons including the electroshock device, a hammer, a can of mace and knives.

Found evidence.

Scripps denied the murders during his trial. He claimed to have killed Lowe in self-defense while fighting off the homosexual advances and that a friend helped him dispose of the body.
 He went to say that he could not name this friend for fear of the safety of his family back in England.
He claimed never to have met the Damudes and that the same friend whom could not be named, had in fact murdered them and then given the credit cards, passports and weapons to Scripps.

He was sentenced to death by hanging.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Martin_Scripps
http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_437_2005-01-17.html
http://murderpedia.org/male.S/s/scripps-john-martin.htm
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/singapore-executes-briton-for-murder-1305611.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/mass-killer-learned-butcher-prison-article-1.2073031
http://murderpedia.org/male.S/s/scripps-john-martin-photos.htm

Tuesday 1 September 2015

The family that walks on all fours:

(GIF from "The family that walks on all fours" A BBC2 documentary)

“The family that walks on all fours” is a documentary made by the BBC following a Kurdish family who walk on palms of their hands and feet due to a non-progressive congenital cerebellar ataxia. 

 Due to this, members of the Ulas family are not bipedal, and instead walk with quadruped gait. 
The documentary provides interviews and explores different ideas and theories behind the causes of their walk.

Channeling Aliens With Reverend Robert Short:



Robert L. Short, also known as Reverend Robert Short, was a Texas based American Christian minister and Author.

Reverend Short was also featured on Louis Theroux’s TV series “Weird weekends”, wherein armed with his own style of charming and faux naive interviewing techniques, Theroux would travel to different states and stay with individuals he found strange or interesting and document their time together.

Short was featured on the UFO episode, where he demonstrated his ability to contact and channel an Alien named Korton.

(To watch the full episode click here [X])

There is another video shot after the original episode, where Theroux hosted a Christmas party with the idea of bringing his guests together, hoping that despite their differences, they could get a long and have a good time.

 He invites favorites from previous episodes of the series, including Mountain man Mike, a man who lives isolation, shielded from the modern world and a Porn star named JJ.



Above is a clip from the gathering, where the Reverend decides to gift the other guests by getting in contact with Korton.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Short
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Theroux%27s_Weird_Weekends