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 wife. Did she kill Ben or his mother - or both - and, if she did, will she get away with it. 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.
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 abundant free advertising for duct tape. Full story.
See also
Killer Doctors - Harold Shipman has plenty of company
Erkin Guney
A car crashes in mysterious circumstances. The sole occupant was a woman driver who died. Or did she? And even if she didn't die, did someone arrange the accident in the hope or intention that she would die - in other words, was this accident really a case of murder, or conspiracy to murder? This question went to a jury. Full story.
Anna Nicole Smith
Billionaire J Howard Marshall married busty Anna Nicole Smith, who was 63 years his junior, and survived that experience only by 14 months. Natural causes was the natural explanation for the death of this ninety year old, but a vast amount of money was as stake, the inheritance was bitterly disputed, certain threats may or may not have been made, and the FBI launched a murder investigation. Then Smith herself died, in circumstances even more dodgy. Full story.
Franz Josef N
In April 2009, 60-year-old Franz Josef N, his brothers and other members of his extended family arrived at court in Landshut, Bavaria for a hearing centred around an inheritance of 100,000 euros (about £80,000 at the time). Mr N had a gun - as this was a civil, not criminal, case, people were not searched as they entered the courthouse - and he used it, killing the wife of one of his brothers and wounding the wife of another. He also shot a lawyer before killing himself.
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
In December 2007, Sharon Birchwood, a frail and reclusive 52-year-old divorcee, was found dead in her Ashtead, Surrey bungalow, apparently strangled by a robber. The beneficiary of her insurance policy, and inheritor of her home, was her ex-husband Graham, whom she still adored during the 20 years since their divorce. Graham's financial problems seemed solved.
Who killed Sharon? Police had only a shred of DNA evidence to go on, but this was enough to link a British expatriate, Paul Cryne, to the murder. Cryne's DNA was found on Sharon's body, and also on an object in the home of Graham's mother.
Both men were convicted of murder - Cryne for strangling Sharon, and Graham for hiring him to commit the act. Both received life sentences, with Graham having to serve at least 32 years, and Cryne 28 years.
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 speculated that a dispute over his mother's will may have tipped him over the edge.
