Murder and More
Can't Wait, Won't Wait
Ben Novack Jr was found beaten to death in a hotel room. A few months earlier, his mother died, also battered and bruised. And years earlier, Ben himself has been violently robbed by his own wife - a suspect in his murder. The Novack saga is as weird as they come. Full story.
If you are set to inherit a bundle and kill your benefactor to get your payout sooner rather than later, try to make your crime perfect. Otherwise, you go to jail and probably won't get the money even if you are released from prison.
BREAKING NEWS: Derrick Bird, the Cumbria Shootings
On 2 June 2010, taxi driver Derrick Bird killed 12 people - including his twin brother, the family lawyer and a taxi-driver colleague - and injured 11 others before killing himself. Early reports speculate that a dispute over his mother's will may have helped tip him over the edge.
Harold Shipman
Collecting legacies was not Harold Shipman's motive in most of the murders he committed on his patients, but it did underlie perhaps the most important of his 200+ crimes - because his falsification of Kathleen Grundy's will led to his unmasking as a serial murderer. Full story.
Ben Novack Jr
Wealthy businessman and hotel heir Ben Novack Jr was found murdered in New York in July 2009. Stuff happens. But four month earlier, his mother died after "unwitnessed falls." And seven years before that, Ben had been robbed by his own wife. The word 'bizarre' takes on new meaning in this saga which provides mountains of free advertising for duct tape. Full story.
Erkin Guney
A car crashes in mysterious circumstances. The sole occupant was the woman driver. She died. Or did she? And even if she didn't, was a murder, or conspiracy to murder, committed? A jury had to decide. Full story.
Anna Nicole Smith
Men, especially wealthy middle-aged men, not infrequently marry women young enough to be their daughters. Superwealthy J Howard Marshall was well beyond middle age when he married Anna Nicole Smith: a mere 63 years separated them. She was young enough to be his, wait for it, great-granddaughter. He died not much later of natural causes, but the FBI nevertheless launched a murder investigation related to the inheritance disputes that erupted after his death. Full story.
Franz Josef N
In April 2009, a 60-year-old man identified only as Franz Josef N ended a protracted family dispute by shooting several members of his family. His relatives were present in a courtroom in Landshut, Bavaria when Mr N opened fire, killing the wife of one of his brothers and wounding the wife of another. He also shot a lawyer before killing himself. He snapped over an inheritance dispute worth about 100,000 euros (about £80,000 at the time). As the case was civil, not criminal, searches were not conducted on individuals entering the courthouse.
Nerys Price and Simon Morris
A tidy inheritance was on Simon Morris’s mind when he bludgeoned his partner, Nerys Price, with a hammer.
A former nightclub bouncer, Morris is a big man - six feet, six inches tall and 15 stone in weight.
Not only was his partner smaller and shorter, she was also sleeping when he attacked her. She was also 38 weeks pregnant, virtually full-term.
Using a bricklayer's hammer, Morris whacked her twice in her head at their home in Prestatyn, Denbighshire, in Wales. Alive but severely wounded, Nerys pleaded for help, unaware that the man she turned to for help was her assailant.
Morris picked up the telephone but, despite being the uninjured party, fumbled in his attempts to dial 999. Nerys then dialled the emergency services herself. Rushed to hospital, she had a successful emergency caesarean section - and further emergency surgery for two skull fractures. Afterward, she recalled Morris' inability to dial the telephone and became suspicious.
Before the attack, Morris had persuaded Nerys to alter her will. With insurance payouts as well, he stood to inherit thousands of pounds on her death. The prosecution argued that he intended to use the money to set up a business and a new life with a woman he had recently met.
In October 2009 Morris was sentenced to two 25-year terms to run concurrently, one for the attempted murder of Nerys, and the other for attempting to harm her - their - fetus.
Graham Birchwood
Just his luck, Graham Birchwood must have thought, to have a frail and reclusive first wife who was still devoted to him although they had divorced some 20 years earlier.
Birchwood had moved on. He had two teenage sons with his Malaysian-born second wife but he also had business debts of £150,000. In June 2009, Birchwood, 55, was convicted of hiring a business associate to murder first wife Sharon in her Surrey bungalow. His motive?: inheriting her house and benefitting from her insurance policy would bring him nearly £475,000. Instead, he will serve at least 32 years after being jailed for life.
