Strange Roots Podcast

On June 7, 1998 in Jasper Texas, James Byrd Jr. accepted a ride home from an acquaintance he knew from around town. Unfortunately, this acquaintance would not take Byrd home and instead, with two other white men, drove out to a remote county road out of town and lynched him. This became the decades (1990’s) most horrific hate crime. 

Pictures
https://photos.app.goo.gl/LQJabMgVserDE2Bp7

Sources
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wEtX9lKY9uQYoX0zOUwmDdBDP3OxAOFt/view?usp=sharing

White supremacist Joseph Paul Franklin, born as James Clayton Vaughn Jr., was known as the Racist Killer. He was active during the summer of 1977 to the summer of 1980 and drove around the country with an assortment of rifles killing Black men, white women who dated them, mixed-race couples, and Jewish people.

Sources
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-A2F7F37nvLnpdguZoLN_feWHbAS_j3Xb_GMItTNk0U/edit?usp=sharing

It was early morning on November 15, 1959,  in a small farming community in Holcomb, Kansas.  Ex-convicts Perry Smith and Richard Hickock broke into a home and killed the four members of the Clutter Family. The victims of this tragedy included those who were killed in the home invasion: Herbert, Bonnie, Nancy (16), and Kenyon (15), as well as their two older daughters Eveanna, and Beverly, who had already moved out of the house. 

We are not doing an episode this week, but here is a little something from us to you!!

On June 14, 2015 in Greene County, Missouri, just outside of Springfield, sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the home of Clauddine Blanchard (Dee Dee), and her daughter Gypsy Blanchard. When police arrived on the scene, Dee Dee was face down on her bed lying in a pool of her own blood after having suffered multiple stab wounds that had been inflicted several days earlier. Her daughter Gypsy was nowhere to be found and it was believed that she had been kidnapped. 

Sources
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RaIDn5Z8408_5rhhxfLS9oR661E8ZchEenaszA0JRt4/edit?usp=sharing

On March 12, 1996, 18 year old Matthew De Gruchy brutally attacked and murdered his mother, 41 year old Jennifer and his two siblings 13 year old Sarah and 15 year old Adrian in their Shearwater Boulevard home in what is considered one of Australia's most notorious and brutal killings.

Sources:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f8nqebRdAIOdnbm27CB7RQILG0r7WvFBobDS8Ikeiek/edit?usp=sharing

On the morning of September 14 2007, 14 year old Andrew Gosden walked out of his home in Balby, a suburb of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, took £200 from his bank account and purchased a one way ticket to London. CCTV footage captured Andrew leaving Kings Cross Station in London at 11:25am, and this would be the last confirmed sighting of Andrew. 

Sources:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q9FGRDB2-o4bbxomST4CRnvYwAEFbv03O-5c0zqSjX4/edit?usp=sharing

On June 11 1981,32 year old Issei Sagawa invited his classmate, 25 year old Renee Hartevelt, to his apartment under the pretext of dinner and school work. It was there that he killed, sexually assaulted, and became a cannibal.

SOURCES
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FRe6PPnfAu1TwDg4Z4PXWn1D6ipglfHHhEK8s6ekUa8/edit?usp=sharing

A convicted serial sexual offender and killer, Westley Allan Dodd kidnaped, sexually assaulted, and murdered three young boys in Vancouver, Washington in 1989. He was captured later that same year when he attempted to kidnap a 6 year old boy from a movie theater. After pleading guilty to the charges brought against him, he refused an automatic appeal and was executed by hanging on January 5, 1993.

Sources
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xCEB-OKAr4EYIIaDk5bOM6rULkh9G6QIV-MDdItawlc/edit?usp=sharing

On Tuesday March 26, 2018, at the Juan Creek Crossing off of Highway 1 in California’s Mendocino County, a tourist discovered an upside down SUV at the bottom of a rocky ocean cliffside. Inside and nearby the SUV were 5 of the 8 members of the Hart Family. 

Photos
https://photos.app.goo.gl/hoiLE5tGiUKbwPD3A

Sources
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwn7bTaaz_GTFgs0g_u-3cwrC4MWdd6nQGbXo4RURLs/edit?usp=sharing