TRUE

25 year-old Terra Newell parked her car on the top level of her apartment building’s lot. Collecting her dog and purse, Terra exited her car and walked to the rear. The 5'2" tall Terra was immediately confronted by the 6'2" tall man who had been a few spots over only moments earlier. The large man put one of his hands over her mouth revealing a long knife in the other. He stabbed at her repeatedly, slicing deep into her forearm and another into her chest. She was able to knock the knife from his grip and the blade landed within her reach. Blade in hand, Terra went into all-out survival mode and attributed the popular TV show The Walking Dead for her sudden kill-or-be-killed mentality. She began stabbing wildly at the man, inflicting 13 wounds in all. If she learned one thing from the end of the world zombie show, she understood that the only way to kill a zombie is to destroy the brain. The final strike went right through his left eye, the long knife driven deep into his brain. As the man lay unconscious and convulsing on the parking lot pavement, the injured Terra called her mother and said “I’m really really sorry. I think I killed your husband.”

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One day in October 1997, several police stations across the US received phone calls from a youth center in Spain. The caller identified himself as the director of the facility and stated that a teenage boy from America was there asking for help. The police in the US put the caller in touch with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The caller from Spain went on to give a brief physical description of the boy and asked if there were any missing teenagers matching their records. The agent checked the database and provided the caller with the name of a teenage boy who had been reported missing several years earlier. The descriptions were similar enough to be a possible match, so the case details were sent over right away. Not long after the file arrived, the center for missing children received a follow-up call from the person claiming to be the director of the youth facility. He told the agent that the missing boy in the file and the scared boy standing in his office were in fact the same. When the call ended, the man calling himself the director studied the missing boy’s file carefully. It wouldn’t be long before he would have to convince the world that he was the missing teenager.

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31 year-old Gareth Williams was, by all accounts, an incredibly private person who disliked office small talk and did his best to avoid social events. In 2001, Williams went to work for the British intelligence agency known as the Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. Nine years later, Gareth Williams would become the focus of an extraordinary mystery. His intensely private life became very public when the government agent was found dead inside a padlocked duffle bag.

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From the mental disorder defense, otherwise known as the insanity plea, to the more common ones like self-defense, judges and juries are tasked with deciding if these arguments are believable. They listen to experts and witnesses, pour over exhibit A and exhibit B, and ponder whether or not there’s reasonable doubt. They do this for every case brought before them. Even more so, perhaps, for those few who claim they killed while sleeping.

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The story of the Barefoot Bandit continues. More stolen planes. More stolen speedboats and luxury cars. How much longer could he possibly elude authorities?  

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The legend of the Barefoot Bandit is the story of an epic crime spree involving hundreds of burglaries and millions of dollars of stolen luxury cars, planes, and boats. The crimes went on for years and crossed state and international borders. The crimes earned the Barefoot Bandit the unenviable title of FBI’s Most Wanted. But what makes the story legendary is that the Barefoot Bandit - was a teenager. 

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Ahhhh maple syrup! The perfect addition to a stack of pancakes. Tapped from the good old maple tree, this sweet condiment is poured over millions of breakfasts every single day. Add to that the countless tasty treats and delicious recipes that use maple syrup and its popularity becomes crystal clear. With popularity comes demand and with every commodity comes a black market. Like moonshine during the dry days of prohibition, maple syrup is no different and with a value over 10 times that of crude oil, the market has become highly regulated. So when a group of thieves decided to steal some sweet liquid gold from a storage warehouse in Quebec, Canada, they weren’t about to stop at a couple of bottles or cases. Far from it. This would go down as one of the most lucrative and perhaps most unusual robberies in Canadian history.

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On a grey rainy morning, a white car drove up the driveway to a house in a quiet South Florida neighborhood. The driver parked and casually walked to the front door carrying balloons and a bouquet of flowers. When 40 year old Marlene Warren greeted the stranger in the bright orange wig, red foam nose, and painted face, she smiled pleasantly. Marlene had loved clowns since she was a child. When the grinning stranger handed her the festive balloons and flowers, Marlene remarked, “Oh, how pretty.” A second later, Marlene was dead and the clown bearing gifts would calmly walk back to the car, drive away, and disappear. 

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On the afternoon of June 4th 2004, the small mountain town of Granby, Colorado would bear witness to a destructive scene that would last over two hours and leave their streets in ruins. Find more information about this episode: www.beyondbizarretruecrime.com Follow us: www.facebook.com/beyondbizarretruecrime/ twitter.com/BeyondBizarreTC Contact us: [email protected]  

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