Top 25 Crimes of the Century

[Cheval]

Another from recent history:
The D.C. Sniper

That had the whole surrounding areas very frightened.
The terror that two people, a rifle, and a hole in the trunk lid had caused.
At one point, the police were looking for an entirely different vehicle! (A white van instead of a brownish colored car.)

[drew]

A peice from Canadianna wasn't on the list:

Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka

Or the Ken and Barbie Killers.

www.cbc.ca/news/background/bernardo/

November 1995:
Bernardo is declared a dangerous offender, meaning he will likely spend the rest of his life in jail.

Sept. 15, 1995:
Bernardo is sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for 25 years.

Sept. 1, 1995:
Bernardo is found guilty of all nine charges against him, including two counts of first-degree murder for killing French and Mahaffy.

June 29, 1995:
Homolka testifies against Bernardo.

May 18, 1995:
Bernardo's trial begins.

September 1994:
Ken Murray quits as Bernardo's lawyer and hands Bernardo's videotapes over to his successor, John Rosen. Rosen turns the videos over to police later in the month.

July 1993:
Homolka pleads guilty to two counts of manslaughter and receives a 12-year jail sentence. Her pleas and the statement of facts agreed to by her lawyer and the Crown are both covered by a publication ban ordered by the judge to ensure a fair trial for Bernardo.

June 28, 1993:
Homolka's trial begins.

May 1993:
The plea agreement between Crown prosecutors and Homolka's lawyers is finalized.

May 6, 1993:
Ken Murray, Bernardo's lawyer, gains access to Bernardo's home. Murray retrieves the videotapes from above a ceiling light fixture in the upstairs bathroom. He would keep the videos in his possession for 16 months.

Feb. 19, 1993:
A search warrant is executed in the Bernardo home. During the 71-day search of the St. Catharines house that follows, police fail to find videotapes containing the recordings of the rapes of Mahaffy, French, Tammy Homolka and at least one other girl.

Feb. 17, 1993:
Bernardo is arrested. An inquiry into the Bernardo case would later find that officers in charge violated Bernardo's charter rights by not allowing him to call a lawyer despite his repeated requests, making his initial eight-hour interrogation inadmissible as evidence.

January 1993:
After Bernardo beats Homolka with a flashlight, leaving her with two black eyes, she leaves their home and files charges against him.

December 1992:
The Centre of Forensic Sciences begins DNA testing of the samples Bernardo provided in 1990.

April 30, 1992:
French's body is found.

April 16, 1992:
Bernardo, with the assistance of Homolka, kidnaps Kristen French from a church parking lot. After raping, torturing and killing her, they leave her body naked in a ditch, her hair cut off.

June 29, 1991:
Bernardo and Homolka are married in a lavish ceremony. Mahaffy's dismembered body is found encased in concrete in Lake Gibson near St. Catharines.

June 14, 1991:
Bernardo kidnaps 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy from outside her house. With Homolka, he rapes and murders her.

Feb. 1, 1991:
Bernardo and Homolka move into a rented house in St. Catharines, Ont.

mid-January 1991:
Bernardo picks up a young female hitchhiker, brings her back to the Homolka home and rapes her in Karla Homolka's bedroom. He drops her off on a back street.

Nov. 20, 1990:
Bernardo provides hair, blood and saliva samples to Metro Toronto police as part of their Scarborough Rapist investigation.

Dec. 23, 1990:
After a Homolka family Christmas party, Bernardo and Karla Homolka drug Tammy Homolka with animal tranquilizers Karla stole from her work. Bernardo and Karla Homolka rape Tammy while she's unconscious. Tammy later chokes on her own vomit and dies. Bernardo tells police he tried to revive her, but failed, and her death is ruled an accident.

July 1990:
According to Bernardo's testimony, he and Karla Homolka serve her younger sister, Tammy, a spaghetti dinner spiked with Valium stolen from Karla's workplace. Bernardo rapes Tammy for about a minute before she starts to wake up.

1990:
Bernardo loses his job at accounting firm Price-Waterhouse. He would later turn to cigarette smuggling to make money.

Dec. 24, 1989:
Bernardo and Homolka are engaged.

Oct. 17, 1987:
Karla Homolka, 17, meets Paul Bernardo, 23, at a hotel restaurant in Scarborough, Ont. They have sex in their hotel room two hours later.

May 1987:
A young woman is raped in Scarborough, Ont., the first in a chain of rapes committed by the person the media dubs the Scarborough Rapist. Paul Bernardo would later admit to the sexual assaults of at least 14 women in southern Ontario. At one point, Bernardo faced 53 charges related to the rape – and in some cases, murder – of young women.

Basically; Homolka's plea bargin was not nececarry, thanks to the video tape...but it was too late.

She is now out of jail, and it's rumered that she is pregnant.

[Cail]

Another from recent history:
The D.C. Sniper

That had the whole surrounding areas very frightened.
The terror that two people, a rifle, and a hole in the trunk lid had caused.
At one point, the police were looking for an entirely different vehicle! (A white van instead of a brownish colored car.)

Yes, absolutely. Freaky, scary times.

[Blackhawk]

how about the guy who bombed the federal building in Oklahoma.. Timothy McVeigh...how could that not make the top 25?

[The Dreaming]

Where the hell is the assassination of JFK? John Lennon? MLK? Ghandi?

JFK at least NEEDS to be on the list, so ingrained it is in the minds of all americans.

[Montresor]

And the publication of Dan Brown's books weren't included in this list?! Insanity!