Ben Butler was born in Carshalton but moved to a village in Cambridgeshire with his mother and stepfather at the age of two or three. He grew up believing his stepfather was his real father, and described his now-divorced parents’ relationship as “volatile”. He later returned to London, attending school in Carshalton and leaving with, in his own words, “not so good” grades in his GCSEs. He went on to work selling car parts for Audi and Volkswagen before moving through a number of unskilled jobs.¹

Butler’s criminal record told its own story. He had a string of convictions for assault, including two attacks in public on an ex-girlfriend, both of which he admitted. His background was not that of a man prone to restraint or gentleness.

Butler met Jennie Gray in March 2006 when he was out drinking at a club in Sutton. He got talking to her after her brother, who she was with, fell off a bar stool. The pair spent the night together and embarked on a casual relationship. Gray found out that she was pregnant about eight weeks later. She was a graphic designer who would later work in the City of London; Butler was, by the time Ellie was born, a stay-at-home father.

By his own account, Butler’s attitude to fatherhood was transformed the moment Ellie arrived. Before, he had described himself as a party animal who thought that babies were “f***ing boring” but he later said holding his daughter changed him. “She was just amazing. I held her in my hand. She was sucking on my finger,” he said. “With her it was different. I was really proud.” He said he had never felt that way about anything before in his life.

But what he claimed and how he behaved were two completely different things.

In February 2007, when Ellie was still a baby, she was taken to Epsom and St Helier Hospital after Butler noticed that she was “suddenly soft and limp”. The hospital team found Ellie had subdural haematomas as well as retinal haemorrhages, and she suffered seizures. It was also noticed she had injuries on her forehand and hand that were consistent with burns. She was just six-weeks-old.²

A child protection investigation was launched, and doctors and social workers concluded that the injuries were not accidental. The evidence pointed clearly to non-accidental trauma – the kind consistent with violent shaking. The Family Court subsequently found that, on the balance of probability, Butler had caused Ellie’s injuries and that Gray had failed to protect her. Ellie was removed from her parents and, in June 2007, placed in the care of her maternal grandparents.

Those grandparents, Neal Gray and his wife Linda, would become Ellie’s primary carers for the next five years. By all accounts they provided her with a loving, stable home, and she thrived under their care. For Neal Gray in particular, Ellie was not just a granddaughter; she was the child he was raising as his own.

In March 2009, Butler was found guilty of grievous bodily harm in respect of Ellie’s injuries and was sentenced to 18 months in prison at Croydon Crown Court by Judge Timothy Stow QC.

Butler did not accept his conviction. He protested his innocence throughout and, along with Jennie Gray, mounted an appeal. In 2010, their efforts bore result, although not because Butler was proven innocent, but because of shifts in medical understanding around infant head injuries. New medical evidence cast doubt on the strength of the case, and the judges ruled there was “no rational basis” a jury could reject the possibility of an “unknown cause” of Ellie’s injuries. The Court of Appeal also ruled that the trial judge’s summing up contained “serious misdirections”. On 17 June 2010, Lord Justice Moses led a panel of Court of Appeal judges in quashing Butler’s conviction.

The quashing was not a finding of innocence. It was a finding that the original conviction was unsafe in light of evolving medical science. However, the distinction was lost in what followed. The Serious Case Review later concluded that the Family Court’s decision to exonerate Ben Butler, combined with its subsequent order for agencies to be sent a letter to that effect, had a very significant impact on how agencies could protect his children from that point in time onwards. Butler’s exoneration and the judge’s statement about him being a victim of a miscarriage of justice had the effect of handing all the power to the parents.

Armed with his quashed conviction, Butler wasted no time in launching a campaign to regain custody of Ellie. Butler and Gray embarked on a high-profile publicity campaign to get Ellie back. Butler began a relentless media campaign claiming that false allegations had led to his daughter being removed from the family. He even appeared on TV show This Morning.

Behind the scenes, the legal battle was ferocious and deeply unequal. Butler and Gray were given legal aid to the tune of £1 million. The grandparents, on the other hand, spent their entire life savings of £70,000 trying to defend themselves. Neal and Linda Gray fought as hard as they could to keep Ellie safe, but they were outgunned financially and, ultimately, judicially.

In July 2012, the matter came before Mrs Justice Hogg in the High Court’s Family Division. Despite the concerns raised by police, social workers, and Ellie’s own grandfather, Mrs Justice Hogg sided with Butler and ordered Ellie returned to her parents’ care. The Family Court overturned an order which had previously protected Ellie from her parents, and went so far as to declare that any injury caused to Ellie had been “purely accidental”.

Neal warned the judge she would have “blood on your hands”.³

A Serious Case Review later found that Sutton Children’s Services felt “powerless to act” following the High Court’s ruling, and that Mrs Justice Hogg’s judgment had gone much further than simply quashing Butler’s previous conviction. In her eyes, he had been entirely exonerated as a victim of a miscarriage of justice. That had the effect of telling social services to “back off”, despite their ongoing concerns about returning Ellie to her parents.

Ellie was returned to her parents in November 2012. She was five-years-old, and she barely knew them. The contrast with the grandparents who had raised her must have been immense. When Gray arranged for her parents to see Ellie, they were stunned by her appearance. Neal remembered: “Her appearance changed. She had grown thin and gaunt. She had sunken eyes and dirty, matted hair.” She asked when she could “come home.”⁴

Ellie began attending Avenue Primary Academy in Sutton, but her attendance quickly became a source of serious concern. Teachers noticed she was repeatedly absent from school. The school’s headteacher, Alex Clark, said staff had concerns about the family and had offered the parents help which they did not accept. Butler and Gray would not meet teachers to discuss why Ellie had missed periods from school. They simply made up various excuses including “upset stomach, mum has interview, unwell over the weekend, sick in the night, and sore throat.”⁵

When Ellie did attend, staff noticed unexplained injuries. There was bruising to her forehead and an eye injury. Teachers observed the marks, raised concerns, and documented what they saw, but the power of Mrs Justice Hogg’s ruling effectively tied the hands of anyone who might have intervened. The message that had been sent to every professional in the network was clear: do not challenge these parents.

In October 2013, Ellie suffered a fractured shoulder blade but neither Butler nor Gray sought medical attention. Then on the morning of 28 October 2013, Jennie Gray left for work as a graphic designer in the City of London. Ben Butler was alone with Ellie at the family home on Westover Close, Sutton. What happened in the hours that followed has never been fully described by Butler, who has consistently denied responsibility.

At 12:46AM, Butler tried to call Gray at her office but reached voicemail and sent a text asking her to “answer”. Her colleague Tracey Bernstein said in a statement that the way Gray got up and left the office was “just not right”. Another former workmate said she had seen Gray looking “agitated” on the phone.⁶

Minutes later, Gray was caught on CCTV dashing out of her office, near the Old Bailey. She sent a text to her manager saying she had left because she was “feeling unwell”. She hailed a taxi and rushed back to Sutton. Paramedics were called about two hours later.

When emergency services finally arrived, they found Ellie on her bedroom floor. She was cold and unresponsive, lying beside a small pink child’s stool. Butler claimed she had fallen, but medical evidence suggested her injuries were caused by being thrown against a wall or hit with a “blunt weapon”. She was taken to St George’s Hospital in Tooting, where she died.

A post-mortem examination revealed the true horror of what had been done to her. Ellie had suffered skull fractures from at least two severe impacts. Skeletal pathology evidence showed that she had suffered four distinct periods of injuries throughout her short life – evidence that the violence had not begun on the day she died.

While Ellie lay dying, or was already dead, Gray set about covering her partner’s tracks. She washed clothing stained with Ellie’s blood and helped fabricate a cover story that Ellie had fallen accidentally. The prosecution alleged that Gray and Butler made the 999 call knowing that their daughter was already dead.

Ben Butler was charged with the murder of Ellie while Jennie Gray was charged with child cruelty and perverting the course of justice. The trial opened at the Old Bailey in May 2016. Butler’s defence counsel suggested that Ellie had suffered fatal head injuries when she fell from a stool while mimicking Peppa Pig, a children’s cartoon of which she was reportedly a fan.⁷

The defence asked whether Ellie might have jumped from a bed, fallen backwards, and struck her head in the manner depicted in the show. The pathologist who had carried out the post-mortem, Professor Anthony Risdon, was unequivocal in his response. He said that he had seen a large number of head injuries in children, had never come across a scenario like that, and had never come across a short distance fall that resulted in a similar injury. He concluded that Ellie died from a “considerable blunt impact to the head”, and noted there was a “strong possibility” that four marks on her jaw were caused by gripping.

The trial also heard evidence about Butler’s character. Jurors watched recorded footage from a camera found in the parents’ bedroom which showed Ellie present in the room while her father directed an abusive tirade at someone down a phone. She was seen in her pyjamas with a thick bandage on her leg while her father shouted off-camera.

Butler’s behaviour in court did little to help his case. He stormed out of the dock after accusing a pathologist of cremating Ellie “behind our back”, shouting: “You took samples and cremated her behind our back. You hid evidence.”⁸ When he took the stand in his own defence, he delivered a tirade against both his current trial and his original 2009 conviction. “It’s a disgrace,” he told the court. “Make no mistake about it.” He accused the prosecution of using the same pool of medical experts across multiple cases, claimed those experts were incapable of impartiality, and insisted evidence had been lost. He also complained that he was being tried for “arguing with my wife” rather than for his daughter’s murder – a remark that drew little sympathy from those following the proceedings.

Gray’s position was complicated. She had admitted perverting the course of justice in helping to cover up what had happened, but denied child cruelty. She was at work as a graphic designer in the City of London when Butler allegedly murdered their daughter. The prosecution argued that her devotion to her partner had overridden her concern for her daughter. Gray told the Old Bailey she had visited Butler in prison 190 times since he was charged with murder.

Tragically, Ellie’s grandmother Linda Gray died on the first day of the murder trial, having never seen justice served. Neal Gray was understood to be too ill to give evidence. The couple who had loved and raised Ellie for years were robbed, in different ways, of the chance to see the case through.

On 21 June 2016, the jury at the Old Bailey returned its verdict. Ben Butler was found guilty of murder. Following the guilty verdict, Butler shouted out: “I’ll fight for the rest of my life. Unbelievable,” before adding: “I want to be sentenced now so I can fight in the Appeal Court.” He said: “I will fight forever to prove this wrong. My daughter was jumping in the house. I’m 100% not guilty.” Gray, from the dock, said: “Big mistake. Spend another 10 years proving you wrong.”⁹

The sentencing judge, Mr Justice Wilkie, was not swayed. He described Butler as a violent, ill-tempered, domineering man who had attacked Ellie with “lethal violence” and then arranged the scene. Butler was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 23 years. Jennie Gray was jailed for 42 months after being found guilty of child cruelty and admitting perverting the course of justice.

The conviction of Ben Butler triggered a cascade of official scrutiny, not just of the man himself, but of the system that had sent Ellie back to him.

The Serious Case Review was published on 21 June 2016, immediately after Ben Butler’s conviction. Christine Davies, the Chair of Sutton Safeguarding Children Board, said: “The serious case review concluded that the Family Court’s decision to exonerate Ben Butler of harming Ellie in 2007, combined with its subsequent order for agencies to be sent a letter to that effect, had a very significant impact on how agencies could protect his children from that point in time onwards.”

Yet the review was itself hampered from the start. Beyond furnishing the Serious Case Review with necessary court orders, Mrs Justice Hogg and other members of the judiciary refused to cooperate with it. In response to calls for accountability, a spokesman for the Judiciary stated that if a judge errs in law or on the facts, the remedy is to appeal, and that referring a judge’s decision to an extra-judicial body would be incompatible with the principle of judicial independence.

Neal Gray, speaking after the inquest into Ellie’s death, said that any input from him or his late wife Linda during Ellie’s short life had been “ignored”. He called for a full public inquiry, telling BBC Radio 4: “I want it all open above board and I want everybody to answer. Everybody failed Ellie, completely and utterly.”¹⁰

A senior coroner later said her “preliminary view” was that the way social services had handled the case were issues that needed to be investigated.

On the morning of 13 March 1996, that changed forever.

Thomas Watt Hamilton was born in Glasgow on 10 May 1952. Shortly after his birth, his parents separated and later divorced. He and his mother moved in with her adoptive parents in Cranhill, Glasgow, and in 1956, when Hamilton was four-years-old, he was formally adopted by them. His name was changed to Thomas Watt Hamilton. He grew up believing that his natural mother was his sister. The family relocated to Stirling in 1963, and Hamilton spent the rest of his life in the area. His adoptive mother died in 1987. By 1996 he was living alone at 7 Kent Road, Stirling – a loner in a community that had long since grown wary of him.¹¹

In 1973, Hamilton was appointed assistant leader of the 4th/6th Stirling Scout group. Within months, complaints began to emerge about his conduct. Parents raised concerns that boys had been ordered to sleep in close proximity to Hamilton inside his van during expeditions. On 13 May 1974, his Scout Warrant was withdrawn and he was blacklisted by the Scout Association, meaning he could never hold another appointment within the organisation. Hamilton would spend the next two decades attempting to reverse that decision, writing letters to officials and politicians, but he was rebuffed at every turn.¹²

Undeterred, he redirected his attention towards setting up and running boys’ clubs. Between 1981 and 1996 he organised and ran fifteen such clubs across the area, including the Dunblane Rovers, the Dunblane Boys Club, and the Bannockburn Boys Club, many of which were held on school premises. He taught gymnastics and sports, and took large numbers of photographs and video footage of the boys in attendance. Many of the images focused on the boys’ bodies and Hamilton had insisted that they wear particularly revealing swimwear. As the years passed, whispers began to circulate. Parents removed their sons from his clubs. Complaints were made to police. Detective Sergeant Paul Hughes, the former head of Central Scotland Police’s child protection unit, wrote a report recommending that Hamilton’s firearm licence be revoked on account of his “unsavoury character” and “unstable personality.” No action was taken. There was no concrete evidence of a criminal offence.¹³

Hamilton had obtained his first firearms certificate in his mid-twenties. Over the following two decades he bought progressively more weapons and joined several gun clubs, working diligently on his accuracy. In the six months prior to March 1996 he stepped up his rate of ammunition purchases and increased his attendance at gun clubs. In the weeks before the massacre, an anonymous nine-year-old boy later told police that Hamilton had been questioning him weekly for two years about the layout of the school’s gymnasium and the daily routine of the pupils. Those questions stopped one week before the attack.¹⁴

Hamilton had applied to work as a volunteer at Dunblane Primary School and had been turned down. Increasingly paranoid and isolated, he sent packages to politicians, newspapers, and television stations containing letters in which he insisted he was not a pervert and that a conspiracy was being waged against him. He wrote to Queen Elizabeth II, requesting her personal intervention to restore his standing. His letter read, in part: “I turn to you as a last resort and am appealing for some kind of intervention to help me regain my standing in society.” The day before the massacre, he mailed fresh copies of these letters to television stations and newspapers. His mother later told police he had visited her that evening and had seemed perfectly normal. He gave no indication of what he intended to do the following morning.

It was around 8:15AM on the 13^th of March, 1996, when a neighbour saw Thomas Hamilton outside his home on Kent Road, scraping ice from his white van. He was wearing black combat trousers, a dark jacket, and a dark woolly hat. He appeared unremarkable. No different from any other morning. A short while later, he drove in the direction of Dunblane.

Hamilton’s plan had been to arrive at Dunblane Primary School in time for morning assembly. The school was one of the largest in Scotland, with 640 pupils, and the assembly hall could not accommodate all of them at once. That morning, Primary 1, 2, and 3 attended morning assembly from 9:10 to 9:30AM. Hamilton arrived later than he had intended. There had been roadworks on the route and he had been delayed by a matter of minutes. He had missed the assembly by the time he pulled his van into the school car park.

He retrieved a pair of pliers from the van and walked to a telephone pole at the edge of the car park, cutting the wires. The pole served not the school itself but a number of surrounding homes. He then donned a pair of ear defenders, picked up a large black bag, and attached four holsters to his body. In the bag and holsters he was carrying four guns – two Smith and Wesson .357 revolvers and two 9mm Browning HP pistols – and 743 rounds of ammunition. He had etched his own markings onto his parabellum cartridges to speed up reloading. He crossed the car park and entered the building through a door on the west side.

Primary 1 had just returned from assembly. The children had changed into their PE kits and gathered in the gymnasium for their first lesson of the morning. There were 28 pupils in total, 25 of them five-years-old and three of them six-years-old. Their class teacher was Gwen Mayor, 45, a respected and well-loved member of staff who had taught at the school for years. She was due to be relieved in a few minutes to attend a meeting with the headmaster. Eileen Harrild, the part-time PE teacher, was in the gymnasium laying out equipment when Hamilton walked in.

Harrild did not have time to speak. Before she could ask Hamilton who he was or why he was there, he opened fire. She raised her arms and was shot in both forearms, the right hand, and the left breast. In a state of shock, she stumbled towards the gymnasium storeroom. A number of terrified children followed her. Mary Blake, a supervisory assistant, was shot in the head and legs but managed to reach the storeroom, pushing children ahead of her as she went. Some of those who made it into the storeroom had already been shot. The two women, who were both seriously wounded, did what they could to console the injured children as the shooting continued on the other side of the door. Blake later remembered how one child said simply: “What a bad man.”¹⁵

Gwen Mayor was shot several times and died almost instantaneously. It would later be noted by the first school staff to reach the gymnasium that she appeared to have died trying to shield her pupils.

Hamilton moved through the gymnasium, firing from three different positions. He spread his fire as he entered, then walked to the middle of the room and fired again, then moved to the far end. At one point he walked in a semi-circle and fired systematically at a group of children who had either been wounded or had fallen to the floor during the chaos. He stood over them and fired at point-blank range. A little boy who had left the class to fetch a pair of scissors looked through the gymnasium window and was spotted by Hamilton, who fired through the glass, injuring the boy with shattered fragments.¹⁶

Amy Hutchison, who was five-years-old, later described what she could remember: “We were skipping around. I don’t remember the pain of being shot. I don’t remember the noises. I don’t remember sounds. I remember my leg turning to jelly and falling to the floor.” She was treated in hospital for six weeks.¹⁷

A teacher passing along a corridor in the main building was grazed in the head by a bullet. Hamilton exited through a fire exit and fired towards the Primary 7 portable classroom of Kay Gordon, who ordered her pupils to the ground. Nine bullets struck the classroom; some passed through the walls, and one went through the back of a chair that a child had vacated moments earlier. Miraculously, none of those pupils were harmed. Hamilton returned to the gymnasium and continued firing.¹⁸

In total he fired 105 shots. Seven times he reloaded one of the Browning pistols. He had loaded the parabellum cartridges with four different types of bullet and had etched his own markings onto them to speed the process. Around five seconds after re-entering the gymnasium, he set the Browning aside, picked up one of the Smith and Wesson revolvers, placed the barrel in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.¹⁹

The entire attack lasted approximately three minutes. Hamilton had shot 32 people a total of 58 times. Sixteen people were killed inside the gymnasium. One child died on the way to Stirling Royal Infirmary. Fifteen others were injured.

Headmaster Ron Taylor was among the first to reach the gymnasium. What he and the other staff members found there was beyond comprehension, but they did not stop. They tended to wounds and stayed with the dying until emergency services arrived approximately fifteen minutes later. Taylor would later be described by police as a hero for the calm and measured way in which he managed the school in the aftermath, looking after his 700 pupils and staff in a state of profound shock. He would carry great personal guilt for years to come. “Evil visited us today,” he told the press that afternoon. “We don’t understand it, and I guess we never will.”²⁰

Ambulance crews and police converged on the school. The injured were triaged at the scene before being rushed to Stirling Royal Infirmary, where operating theatres had been cleared of planned surgical cases in anticipation of their arrival. Four children had sustained potentially fatal wounds. Additional teams arrived from Falkirk and District Royal Infirmary. By approximately 11:10AM, all of the injured had reached hospital. Some were subsequently transferred to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Yorkhill, Glasgow, for specialist treatment. One five-year-old girl, Amie Adam, was in critical condition after surgery to her shattered thigh. Doctors warned she might be permanently disabled.²¹

Parents had begun arriving at the school gates as word spread through the town. A senior police officer addressed the gathering crowd and asked that only the parents of children in Gwen Mayor’s class come forward. He directed them to a large home overlooking the school. The parents filed in, filling the kitchen, the living room, and the hallway. After about an hour they were bussed to the school and led into the staff room. One of them later recalled: “It was torture.” One by one they were taken out and told what had happened to their child. The parents of the wounded were called out first. Then the parents of those who had not survived.²²

One mother, unable to bear the wait, broke through the police cordon and ran into the school. She fainted on the gymnasium floor when she found her daughter, who had been shot in the neck. Isabel Wilson, whose daughter Mhairi was among those killed, later recalled being told the news: “We went into the room with a police officer and a social worker. He said my daughter was one of the ‘casualties.’ I learnt that he had two small daughters of his own and he couldn’t bring himself to say my daughter was dead.”²³

Among the pupils who were on school grounds that morning but were unharmed was an eight-year-old boy named Andy Murray. He and his brother Jamie, who also attended the school, took shelter under a desk in the headmaster’s office. Murray would go on to become Britain’s most successful tennis player. He has rarely spoken about the events of that day in interviews, saying he was too young to fully understand what was happening at the time. “Anyone who comes from a small town and achieves something puts that town on the map,” he said years later. “In Dunblane’s case, it is especially important.”

The seventeen people who lost their lives that morning were:

Gwen Mayor, 45: Gwen Mayor grew up in Great Harwood, Lancashire, and trained as a teacher before moving to Scotland with her husband Rodney in the 1970s. They had two daughters, Esther and Deborah. She had taught at Dunblane Primary for years and was regarded by pupils, parents, and colleagues alike as warm, patient, and deeply committed to her class. She was due to hand Primary 1 over to another teacher that morning for a few minutes while she attended a meeting with the headmaster. She never made it. Evidence at the scene indicated she died trying to shield her pupils. More than 500 people attended her funeral at Dunblane Cathedral. Her colleague Stuart McCombie addressed the children in the congregation: “Boys and girls, when you think of Mrs. Mayor, be happy.”²⁴

Victoria Elizabeth Clydesdale, 5: Victoria is buried in Dunblane Cemetery. In the STV documentary broadcast on the first anniversary of the massacre, her family spoke of the lasting void left by her death. A photograph taken at the memorial garden in the years following shows her younger brother Connor, then aged three, reaching toward the wind chimes placed at her grave.

Emma Elizabeth Crozier, 5: Emma had been baptised alongside her closest friend Joanna Ross, and the two girls were inseparable throughout their short lives. Their minister described them both as “bright little girls, wee sparklers, little buttons.” Emma and Joanna were buried on the same day. In death, as in life, they were together.²⁵

Melissa Helen Currie, 5: Melissa had only recently moved to Dunblane from Braemar, in the Cairngorms. Her parents were Graham and Helen Currie, and she had at least one younger brother. Her closest friend at the school was Charlotte Dunn, and the two girls were inseparable. A joint funeral service was held for Melissa and Charlotte, attended by more than 600 mourners.

Charlotte Louise Dunn, 5: Charlotte’s family had moved to Dunblane from the West Midlands in 1995. She had a brother named Alex, and had written letters back to her old friends telling them how much she loved Scotland, even though she missed them. She became best friends with Melissa Currie almost immediately. She loved teddy bears; her headstone is carved in the shape of a panda. She and Melissa were buried together.

Kevin Allan Hasell, 5: Kevin lived in Hillside Avenue in Dunblane. He was, by those who knew him, described as a lively and cheerful little boy. His closest friend outside school was a boy named Robbie Hurst. He is buried in Dunblane Cemetery.

Ross William Irvine, 5: Ross is among the thirteen children buried in the dedicated section of Dunblane Cemetery alongside their teacher. Beyond his name and his place in that cemetery, little has been placed on the public record by his family, a privacy that has been respected.

David Charles Kerr, 5: David’s funeral at the Church of the Holy Family in Dunblane was the first of the week-long series of burials, held on 19 March. His family has kept his memory private in the decades since.

Mhairi Isabel MacBeath, 5: Mhairi’s mother, Isabel Wilson, was one of the parents directed to the house overlooking the school on the afternoon of 13 March, and one of the last to be told what had happened to her daughter. She later described the moment to the Sunday Mail: the police officer who came to tell her, she said, had two small daughters of his own, and could not bring himself to say the word “dead.” He told her Mhairi was one of the casualties. Isabel Wilson understood.

Brett McKinnon, 6: Brett was the oldest of the sixteen children killed, having turned six on 17 January, just weeks before the massacre. He lived close to school and had been friends with both Joanna Ross and John Petrie, who lived nearby. His aunt, Katrina Joseph, travelled from North America to Scotland to help bury him. At his funeral, the Reverend Moira Herkes read a verse by A.A. Milne: When I was one, I had just begun / When I was two, I was nearly new. It ended: But now I’m six, I’m as clever as clever / So I think I’ll be six now forever and ever. Pipers around the world played in his memory the following month.

Emily Morton, 5: Emily is among those buried in Dunblane Cemetery. Her family has chosen to keep her memory private, and little has been placed on the public record.

Abigail Joanne McLennan, 5: Abigail was the daughter of Duncan and Elizabeth McLennan. She had two sisters and the family had only recently returned to Scotland after living abroad, in the Far East. Her father Duncan became one of the most prominent voices among the bereaved parents, and his words – “We can’t get our children back. We can do the best we can to make sure it doesn’t happen again” – were carried in newspapers across the country. Abigail had long blond hair.²⁶

Sophie Jane Lockwood North, 5: Sophie had already known profound loss before 13 March 1996. Her mother, Barbara, had been diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after Sophie’s birth and died when Sophie was not yet three. Father and daughter had become, in the words of those who knew them, an inseparable team. Sophie’s father, Dr. Mick North, described her as “a lively, inquisitive, popular girl with huge brown sparkling eyes and a cheeky grin.”²⁷ A snowdrop cultivar found growing in a Dunblane garden was renamed Sophie North in her memory.

John Petrie, 5: John was described by those who knew him as a bright, outgoing little boy with a cheeky face. He was a close friend of Brett McKinnon. He is buried in Dunblane Cemetery.

Joanna Caroline Ross, 5: Joanna lived on George Street in Dunblane with her parents, Pamela and Kenneth Ross. She had been baptised alongside her best friend Emma Crozier, and the two were rarely apart. She had a younger sister who was just a few months old when Joanna was killed, and had been friends with Brett McKinnon, who lived nearby. She and Emma were buried on the same day. Her older sister Alison, who was a pupil at the school the morning of the massacre, has in adulthood become a vocal advocate for the community’s memory. “It looms over us all,” Alison has said. “It needs to be remembered so that everyone’s aware that we are still here, still getting on with our lives.”

Hannah Louise Scott, 5: Hannah was born on 28 September 1990. Her parents were Karen and David Scott, and she had two sisters, Katrina and Rebecca. She is buried in Dunblane Cemetery.

Megan Turner, 5: Megan was born in Backcroft. Her parents were Karen and Willie Turner. Her mother described her simply: “Full of life, always running and jumping. Megan stood on her head more than she stood on her feet.”²⁸

Pathologist Professor Anthony Busuttil was charged with the grim task of examining those who had died and formally informing their families. Most of the victims had suffered between one and seven gunshot wounds. He later said the severity of the injuries was worse than anything he had encountered in his career. He also conducted the post-mortem examination of Hamilton himself, running extensive tests to search for any physical explanation for his actions – evidence of a brain tumour, alcohol, drugs, viral infection, lead poisoning. He found nothing. There was no physical cause. No one would ever know with certainty what drove Thomas Hamilton to walk into that gymnasium on the morning of 13 March 1996.

Two days after the massacre, on the evening of 15 March, a vigil and prayer session was held at Dunblane Cathedral. Around 5,000 people wound through the streets and into the grounds of the 13th-century cathedral. They came from Dunblane and from well beyond it – people who had never known the victims but who could not stay away. The service was conducted by the Reverend Colin McIntosh and was broadcast live by the BBC.²⁹

On 18 March, the United Kingdom observed a one-minute silence at 9:30AM., the approximate time of the attack. Rail stations, airports, shops, sports arenas, and broadcasters across the country fell still. It marked the beginning of a week of funerals. The families had requested privacy, and the media complied. Television cameras and press photographers stayed away from the ceremonies. The first funerals took place on 18 March. Emma Crozier and Joanna Ross were among those buried that day. Their minister, the Reverend William Gilmour, spoke of them simply: they had been bright little girls, he said.

On 19 March, David Kerr was buried at the Church of the Holy Family in Dunblane. Melissa Currie and Charlotte Dunn were laid to rest at Dunblane Cathedral later that morning, followed by Megan Turner and Hannah Scott. Further services were held across the following days. Wreaths in the shapes of cars, motorcycles, and Power Rangers lay beside small white coffins inside the ancient cathedral. Many of the children were buried in a dedicated area of Dunblane Cemetery. The final funeral of that long week was for Brett McKinnon, six years old. More than 500 people filled the cathedral for the funeral of Gwen Mayor.

Six days after the massacre, on 19 March, Hamilton’s body was cremated in a private ceremony. A police spokesman confirmed only that the service had been conducted far from Dunblane.

Dunblane Primary School reopened on 22 March, a little over a week after the attack. The gymnasium was demolished on 11 April 1996 and replaced with a memorial garden.

Seven months after the massacre, in October 1996, the families of the victims organised their own memorial service at Dunblane Cathedral. More than 600 people attended, including Prince Charles. The service was broadcast live on BBC1 and was conducted by James Whyte, a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Television presenter Lorraine Kelly, who had reported on the massacre for GMTV in the immediate aftermath and had formed lasting friendships with many of the families, was a guest speaker. It was a deeply personal occasion, designed and controlled by the bereaved community, not by officials or broadcasters.³⁰

That December, with the consent of Bob Dylan, a Scottish musician named Ted Christopher wrote a new verse for Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door in memory of the Dunblane children and their teacher. The recording featured brothers and sisters of the victims singing the chorus, with Mark Knopfler on guitar. It was released on 9 December 1996 and reached number one in the UK singles chart on 15 December. The proceeds went to children’s charities.

In March 2000, a standing stone was placed and dedicated in Dunblane Cathedral. Quotes were carved into all four sides of the two-metre monument. Stained glass windows in memory of the victims were placed in three local churches: St Blane’s, the Church of the Holy Family, and the nearby Lecropt Kirk, as well as at the Dunblane Youth and Community Centre, which opened in September 2004 – built with the donations that had poured into the town in the aftermath of the massacre.

On 14 March 1998, two years to the day after the attack, a memorial garden was opened at Dunblane Cemetery, where Gwen Mayor and twelve of the children are buried. The garden features a fountain and a plaque bearing the names of all seventeen who died. In August 1997, two varieties of rose were planted at the centre of a roundabout in the town.

They had been developed by Cockers Roses of Aberdeen: the Gwen Mayor rose, and the Innocence rose, in memory of the children. A snowdrop cultivar found growing in a Dunblane garden in the 1970s was renamed Sophie North in memory of one of the victims.

In the days following the massacre, investigators examined Hamilton’s background in detail. What they found raised profound questions about how he had been permitted to continue holding a firearms certificate. Hamilton had legally owned guns for over twenty years. The year before the massacre, Central Scotland Police had renewed 340 firearm licences in a single exercise, including Hamilton’s, and had approved every one. Despite the written concerns of Detective Sergeant Paul Hughes, whose report recommending revocation of Hamilton’s licence had been filed and ignored, Hamilton had faced no legal obstacle to owning the weapons he used on 13 March.

Lord William Cullen, a senior member of the Scottish judiciary, was appointed to lead a public inquiry. The Cullen Report, published in October 1996, was damning. It identified failures in the system that had allowed Hamilton to retain his licence in the face of credible concerns. It recommended that the government introduce significantly tighter controls on handgun ownership and consider whether an outright ban on private ownership was warranted. It also called for improved school security procedures and stronger vetting of adults working with children.

In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, bereaved families and community members launched a campaign to ban private handgun ownership in Britain. They called it the Snowdrop Petition – the snowdrop being the only flower in bloom in early spring when the children were killed. The petition gathered over 700,000 signatures and was submitted to Parliament. A letter written by the mother of one of the slain children was printed in two national newspapers. In April 1996, a group of concerned citizens travelled to Downing Street to hand a petition signed by over 428,000 people directly to Prime Minister John Major.³¹

In February 1997, Parliament passed the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997, banning all cartridge ammunition handguns with the exception of .22 calibre single-shot weapons in England, Scotland, and Wales. Later that year, Tony Blair’s incoming Labour government went further with the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997, extending the ban to .22 calibre weapons as well. The UK government also instituted a buyback programme, compensating licensed owners for surrendered weapons. A six-member advocacy group called the Gun Control Network was founded in the aftermath and has remained active since.

The gun lobby had been wealthy and politically influential. It was, in the end, defeated.

The Dunblane massacre remains the deadliest criminal act involving firearms in United Kingdom history. In the nearly three decades since, the country has not experienced another school shooting. That is not a coincidence. It is a consequence of decisions made by bereaved parents, politicians, and a public that had decided enough was enough.

The families have continued to grieve, quietly and publicly. Mick North, whose daughter Sophie was killed, became one of the most prominent voices for gun control in Britain and in 2018 organised an open letter from Dunblane survivors and families to the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in the wake of the shooting there. “Never let anyone forget,” the letter read. “There will be attempts to deflect you, to divide you and doubtless to intimidate you, but you’ve already shown great wisdom and strength.” Joanna Ross’s sister Alison has said: “It looms over us all I think and it gets a bit hard to accept. It needs to be remembered so that everyone’s aware that we are still here, we are still getting on with our lives and we didn’t just fade into the background either.”³²

The Dunblane Centre, built with money donated from around the world in the aftermath of the massacre, opened in 2004. Its windows are etched in gold leaf: one pane for each of the children who died, and one for their teacher. In 2025, Gwen Mayor was posthumously honoured with the Elizabeth Emblem, awarded to individuals who have shown outstanding service or sacrifice.

A snowdrop cultivar renamed Sophie North blooms each spring in Dunblane. The Gwen Mayor rose and the Innocence rose grow at the centre of a town roundabout. Twelve children and their teacher lie in a dedicated section of the cemetery on the edge of town, beneath a fountain engraved with their names. The gymnasium where they died was demolished and in its place there is a garden.

They were five and six-years-old. It was a Wednesday morning in March and they were at school. They should have been safe.

Suddenly, he was forced to stop his mower when the machinery struck something along the fence. It was a black suitcase, half hidden in the overgrowth near the fence. He cut the engine. Finding abandoned luggage near a well-travelled highway wasn’t entirely unusual. People discarded things along roadsides all the time. He approached it, perhaps expecting clothes, junk, someone’s forgotten belongings. When he opened it, the smell hit him first. Then he saw the long, dark hair. Then the small human skull.

Just before 4PM, he called the Madison County Sheriff’s Office to report the discovery of a child’s remains.

Within half an hour, the area was swarming with detectives. Inside the suitcase, they found the body of a little girl. She had been wrapped in three white trash bags and tucked inside the suitcase. Alongside her remains were items that suggested, in some painful way, a farewell. She was wearing a pink dress from the brand “Mon Petit,” size 4T, embroidered with butterflies, hearts, and the phrase Follow Your Dreams. She was also wearing a size 4 diaper from the brand “Parent’s Choice.” And there was a feeding tube –  the kind surgically implanted in children who cannot eat on their own. Someone had packed these things with her. Someone had, in some manner, said goodbye.²⁸

The feeding tube became one of the investigation’s most tantalising threads. Etched into it was the inscription “aa4069f02” – a serial number, perhaps a manufacturing code – but despite the hopes investigators placed in it, the trail went cold. There simply wasn’t enough information to trace it back to a supplier, a hospital, or a patient.

Forensic examination, conducted by the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office, began to build a portrait of the child from the evidence her small bones could offer. He estimated her age from two to six years old, and concluded that her body had likely been in the suitcase for three to five months, meaning she had most likely died sometime between April and June of 2016. She had long, thick, dark hair that fell just past her shoulders. Analysts determined she was likely Caucasian or Hispanic.

Her skull told a deeper story. The small size of the girl’s jaw indicated a condition called micrognathia, also known as maxillary hypoplasia. Micrognathia doesn’t allow enough room for teeth to grow and can cause them to misalign. Children with this condition may have difficulty eating, which would explain why she was found with a feeding tube. Her skull also showed another detail: it was deformed and flattened on one side, possibly caused by positional plagiocephaly, which occurs when a baby sleeps in the same position for too long.³³

The little girl’s body showed no signs of trauma and a cause of death could not be determined. However, her manner of death was ruled a homicide.

When she was alive, she had not been hidden from the world. She had been seen by doctors, fitted with medical equipment, cared for in the particular exhausting and tender way that parents of medically complex children know. Nevertheless, nobody came forward to identify her. She became known as Baby Madison. Madison County Sheriff Travis Neely said during a press release: “These kinds of cases are the worst kind. They’re frustrating because you feel helpless. I mean, I cannot bring nobody back to life by no means, but I want to bring some kind of peace, if nothing else.”

Detectives cast their net wide, searching missing children’s databases, reaching out to hospitals and medical providers who might have treated a child matching her profile. The case was entered into NamUs and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children worked with CT scans of her skull to produce facial reconstructions, giving the public something to look at: a rendered face, a child’s face, the best guess science could make at what she looked like in life.

One of those images prompted a significant early lead. After the facial reconstruction was released, a woman from Tucson, Arizona, contacted police, saying that her estranged granddaughter resembled the child. It was exactly the kind of tip investigators had been hoping for. But like so many others, it led nowhere definitive.

In September 2019, pollen and isotope analysis pointed detectives toward the American Southwest. Recent isotope and pollen testing indicated she was originally from southern Arizona, New Mexico, or perhaps northern Mexico, with authorities stating southern Arizona as the most likely place she originated.  For several years, Arizona was the center of the geographic investigation, until it wasn’t. Tips had taken officials to many states and other countries, including Arizona, but Arizona was eventually ruled out as a state where Baby Madison had a potential connection.

The investigation evolved as the science did. In the years following the discovery, the Madison County Sheriff’s Office brought in Identifinders International, a firm specializing in forensic genetic genealogy –  the same discipline that had revolutionized cold case investigations across the country. Their initial genetic analysis showed that the child had strong ancestral ties to El Salvador as well as Nuevo León, Mexico. It was a striking finding, one that reoriented the search entirely. In October 2022, Identifinders posted publicly that Baby Madison “has a very strong tie to El Salvador in her matches which we have been investigating,” and called on anyone with ancestry from El Salvador or Nuevo León to upload their DNA to GEDmatch and FTDNA to potentially help with the case.³⁴

The case has also prompted revisited conclusions about her medical history. In a 2024 update, the Madison County Sheriff’s Department announced that the girl is no longer believed to have had micrognathia, and released a new facial reconstruction reflecting this revised assessment. Detectives said that despite the new evidence, there may have been another unidentified medical condition requiring her to receive nutrition through a feeding tube. The new rendering showed a slightly different face and was circulated again across news outlets and social media, another attempt to shake something loose from someone’s memory.³⁵

By that point, the case had gathered a small but devoted community of advocates online, amateur researchers, and true crime followers who had taken her case to heart. Misty Gillis, a senior forensic genealogist at Identifinders International and a member of the Vidocq Society, wrote that Baby Madison was “the longest running case I’ve had to date.”

The investigation has involved a widening circle of agencies over the years: the Madison County Sheriff’s Office, the Amber Alert Network Brazos Valley, the Texas Rangers, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the FBI’s Bryan Resident Agency, and Identifinders International. Each institution has brought new tools, new angles, new hope. None of it has been enough.

Madison County Sheriff Travis Neeley has lived with this case through all of it. “I still hope some day, somehow, some way, a lead will come and open things up more,” he once said. Somewhere, there are people who knew her. A parent, a relative, a neighbour, a doctor who treated her, a pharmacist who filled a prescription, a medical supply company that shipped equipment to her home. Someone chose the pink dress with the butterflies. Someone knew the brand of her diaper. Someone knows what happened in the months before her body was placed in that suitcase and left beside a Texas highway.

She is still waiting to come home.

If you have any information about Baby Madison, contact the Madison County Sheriff’s Office at 936-348-2755 or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678.

Despite the difficulties, Evelyn found her footing. She enrolled at McAteer High School, where she discovered a passion for theater under teacher Berta Hernandez’s guidance. Evelyn helped adapt Romeo and Juliet to reflect immigrant struggles and took extra English classes to improve her language skills. Berta became more than a teacher – she became Evelyn’s mentor and friend.³⁷

At seventeen, Evelyn became pregnant. Her mother disapproved, so Evelyn moved out to prepare for her son’s arrival. In 1999, she gave birth to Alexis, nicknamed Alex. His father, a Navy serviceman, had left San Francisco before learning of the pregnancy. Evelyn embraced single motherhood with determination, dedicating herself entirely to her son’s wellbeing.³⁸

Money was perpetually tight. Evelyn worked multiple jobs – as a drugstore clerk, nurse’s assistant, and server at the upscale Clift Hotel – while she and Alex moved between small rented rooms in cramped apartments. Without a car, she took buses to work and walked Alex to school daily. Her entire life revolved around giving her son the opportunities she’d never had.

In 1998, Evelyn met Herman Aguilera, a 36-year-old mechanic for United Airlines who also worked as a freelance limousine driver. Their friendship evolved into romance, and Herman paid for Evelyn’s apartment in the Crocker Amazon neighborhood. Toward the end of 2001, Evelyn discovered she was pregnant with Herman’s child – a boy she planned to name Fernando.³⁹

The pregnancy proved difficult, forcing Evelyn to leave her hotel job and go on disability in early 2002. On April 30, 2002, just a week before her due date, Herman bought Alex a new bed from Ikea. That evening, he met Evelyn at San Francisco General Hospital after a routine prenatal exam, drove her home, assembled the bed, and picked up Alex from school.

On the morning of 1 May, 2002, Evelyn called her sister Olivia in Virginia, complaining of abdominal pain. Despite not feeling well, she had no one else to take Alex to school. Later that morning, she took a bus to the bank, shopped at Ross Dress for Less, and picked up her mail, including her disability benefits check. At 9PM, she spoke with her other sister, Reina, in good spirits about her upcoming baby shower.⁴⁰

The next morning, Alex never arrived at school. Evelyn’s sisters tried repeatedly to contact her but received no response. On 7 May, Herman reported Evelyn and Alex missing, claiming the last time he’d spoken with her was 30 April. He told detectives there were no problems in their relationship and that he’d checked local hospitals, fearing she’d gone into labor.

When detectives searched Evelyn’s apartment, they found her and Alex’s passports, suggesting they hadn’t traveled far voluntarily. But there was no sign of struggle or plans to leave, only deepening mystery.

On 14 May, a man discovered a woman’s wallet near a canal in South San Francisco. It contained cash and Evelyn’s disability check. Because police hadn’t yet publicized the disappearance, he spent weeks trying to contact Evelyn before finally turning the wallet over to police on 31 May. Detectives searched the area and the shallow canal leading to the bay, but sniffer dogs found no scent.⁴¹

It wasn’t until 11 June, over a month after the disappearance, that police publicly announced they suspected foul play. Captain Bill Davenport of the Juvenile Division stated, “We’re definitely concerned there might be foul play – they have just vanished.”

As the investigation progressed, detectives uncovered troubling details. Herman Aguilera was married. Evelyn had only discovered this four months into her pregnancy, learning the truth from Herman’s mother. While Evelyn had been overjoyed about the baby, Herman showed little enthusiasm.⁴²

The revelation devastated Evelyn. Just before the disappearance, Herman told her he had no intention of leaving his wife. Evelyn ended the relationship but told him he could visit his son after the birth. Herman had initially denied any relationship problems but later admitted Evelyn had called things off.⁴³

Suspicion naturally fell on Herman. He was a married man facing fatherhood with his girlfriend – a situation with obvious motive. Detectives discovered that on the night of Evelyn’s last phone call, Herman repeatedly tried to reach her. Though he initially denied going near her apartment, he later admitted driving within two blocks before deciding she was avoiding him and returning home. Notably, Evelyn’s purse was found just two blocks from Herman’s limousine company workplace.

On 31 July, a woman’s torso and legs washed ashore along the Embarcadero, dressed in a maternity blouse. On 4 September, DNA testing confirmed the remains belonged to Evelyn Hernandez. Due to advanced decomposition, the cause of death could not be determined, nor could experts establish whether she’d given birth or if the baby had been expelled in a coffin birth.⁴⁴

Herman refused public comment, but his attorney released a statement expressing sadness and cooperation with the investigation. However, Herman had actually stopped cooperating with detectives, admitting he wanted to hide the pregnancy from his wife, who knew about the affair but not about the baby.

Evelyn’s loved ones held a memorial service in San Francisco that drew barely 100 people. Then something remarkable happened: their story was replaced entirely by another case.

In December 2002, Laci Peterson disappeared from Modesto, California. She was eight months pregnant, had a husband named Scott, and vanished while walking her dog. Her case immediately flooded the media.

The parallels were striking. Both women were eight months pregnant with boys. Both cases suggested foul play early on. Both husbands were having affairs. Yet the coverage was dramatically different.⁴⁵

Laci’s disappearance prompted numerous press conferences and vigils attended by hundreds. Before Scott Peterson was even arrested, The Chronicle published 32 articles about Laci – four on the front page. They published just four about Evelyn and Alex, none making the front page. By April 22, 2003, Google News showed over 3,000 stories about Laci and only four about Evelyn.⁴⁶

Laci’s case had a $500,000 reward fund. Evelyn’s had none. Evelyn’s loved ones repeatedly tried to get America’s Most Wanted to feature her case but were rejected because no warrant had been issued – yet the show covered Laci’s case when no suspects had been named either.⁴⁷

The differences between the two women’s circumstances were profound. Laci came from a respected, middle-class family and was seen as an all-American girl next door. Her family was vocal, well-connected, and media-savvy. Evelyn was an immigrant, poor, with limited English. Most of her family lived in El Salvador. Her two sisters in the United States spoke limited English and knew little about U.S. law; one was deaf and mute. Most of Evelyn’s friends spoke only Spanish.⁴⁸

Inspector Holly Pera, who took over Evelyn’s case, admitted they should have gone public sooner but initially assumed Evelyn had left voluntarily. Later, Pera acknowledged the uncomfortable truth: “The majority of the country—media feels they’re better able to relate to Laci Peterson than to Evelyn Hernandez. That is probably the largest reason why the case was more interesting to the public.”

Evelyn’s friend Twiggy Damy put it more bluntly: “This girl, Laci, she’s white, they have money, and there is a family behind her. Who cares about Evelyn?”

In April 2003, Laci’s body and that of her unborn son washed ashore. Scott Peterson was arrested, tried, and convicted of their murders. His case dominated headlines for years.

Evelyn and Alex’s case faded from newspapers. On the one-year anniversary of their disappearance, friends held a press conference, burned incense at the site where Evelyn’s body was found, and tossed flowers into the bay. Evelyn’s sister Reina noted that Evelyn and Herman fought often before the disappearance and called him “very unlikeable,” though she stopped short of direct accusation.

Detectives never officially named Herman a suspect. His wife reportedly provided an alibi, claiming he was home with her when Evelyn and Alex disappeared, though details were never made public.

More than two decades have passed. Alex and Evelyn’s unborn son Fernando remain missing, presumed dead. No arrests have ever been made.

If you have information about the disappearance of Evelyn Hernandez and Alex Hernandez, please contact the SFPD Homicide Detail at 415-553-1145 or the anonymous tip line at 415-553-1166.

The relationship between Joshua and Jaylene was unstable, and it deteriorated further when Jaylene met William Joseph McCullen while working at a gas station. McCullen, who worked for a concrete company, told his sister Crystal that he had found the love of his life. The couple moved together to a home on Bess Town Road in Bessemer City – a property McCullen had inherited with his sister. In 2015, Jaylene and McCullen had a daughter together named Angel.

At approximately 3:30PM on 15 August, 2016, 25-year-old William McCullen called 911 to report that three-year-old Jordyn was missing.⁴⁹ McCullen explained that he had put Jordyn down for a nap and fallen asleep himself. When he awoke, the front door was wide open and Jordyn was nowhere to be found. Jaylene had left for work early that morning, leaving McCullen to care for both Jordyn and one-year-old Angel.

During the 911 call, the operator asked McCullen to check under beds and throughout the house. After searching for just 30 seconds, he returned to the phone and confirmed Jordyn was gone. When responding officers arrived, they were shocked to learn that McCullen hadn’t even contacted Jaylene to inform her that her daughter was missing.

A massive search operation was launched, involving Highway Patrol helicopters, fire and rescue crews, and numerous community volunteers. Jordyn was described as standing 3 feet 2 inches tall with a distinctive birthmark shaped like Hawaii. McCullen said she had been wearing jean shorts and a Mickey or Minnie Mouse t-shirt when he put her down for her nap.

When investigators entered the family home, they were immediately struck by the conditions. Officer Christopher McAulay recalled a strong odour of faecal matter, rotten meat, and spoiled milk permeating the air. The bathroom was filthy, and when they searched Jordyn’s bedroom, they found blood smeared across the walls.⁵⁰ When questioned about the blood, McCullen claimed it belonged to either him or Jaylene, not Jordyn.

During questioning at the police station, McCullen made cryptic comments that raised suspicions. “I hope you find it,” he said, refusing to elaborate further. Investigators noticed scratches on his legs that appeared consistent with moving through brush. It was only while at the station that McCullen finally called Jaylene to inform her that her daughter was missing.

As darkness fell, the search was suspended and resumed at dawn the next day. The community turned out in large numbers to help search for Jordyn. Around 11AM, officers moved toward wooded areas approximately 500 feet from the family home. One officer noticed something unnatural – broken tree limbs and dry leaves piled on the ground with black cloth visible underneath. A white sock with bright-coloured stripes protruded from the pile, covered with flies.

Using a stick to investigate, the officer discovered a small hole dug into the ground. Inside, wrapped in a fitted black sheet, was Jordyn’s lifeless body.⁵¹ She was fully clothed in a long-sleeve shirt reading “Best Big Sister,” blue jeans, and socks.

The medical examiner’s autopsy revealed that Jordyn had died from blunt force trauma. She had suffered at least 10 contusions to her chest and abdomen, six to her right arm, and 14 to her left arm. The blows to her stomach had been so forceful they caused internal bleeding and organ damage. There was bleeding between her skull and scalp, and vomit was found in her mouth and nose.⁵² She had died within 24 to 36 hours before her body was discovered.

Shortly after Jordyn’s body was found, investigators went to arrest McCullen but couldn’t locate him. Two hours later, they found him in the woods without shoes, claiming he had slept there overnight. After his arrest for first-degree murder, McCullen requested to speak with investigators and made a full confession ⁵³

His story changed multiple times. Initially, he claimed he was playfully swinging Jordyn when she slipped and hit her head. When confronted with the extent of her injuries, he admitted he had thrown her across the room and punched her three times in the stomach. “All she said is no, and she don’t backtalk a lot, but that always made me mad,” McCullen told investigators. When he tried to spank her and she refused, he said she rolled onto her back and he punched her in the stomach multiple times.

McCullen claimed Jordyn didn’t cry during the beating – she screamed. He said he later found her unresponsive and attempted CPR to no avail. He admitted to hiding her body in the woods because he thought it would be easier for Jaylene to believe her daughter was missing rather than dead. Disturbingly, he claimed he had always felt like a good father to both Jordyn and Angel, despite admitting he had previously struck Jordyn with a drumstick on her feet and hit her wrists.

In the wake of McCullen’s arrest, neighbours came forward with disturbing accounts of life at the Bess Town Road home. One couple, Michael and Nicole, tearfully recalled that about a month before Jordyn’s death, they had noticed she had two black eyes. When they asked McCullen about it, he said she had fallen. When they asked Jordyn directly, she said her mother had given her the black eyes because she was angry at her father.⁵⁴ Neither Michael nor Nicole reported the incident to authorities – a decision they said that they now deeply regretted.

Neighbour Dusty Connard said she had called police four times in the past six months due to fighting at the home. She could hear Jaylene begging McCullen to stop hitting her from her own front porch. Dusty also witnessed McCullen hitting Jordyn across the chest with such force that she fell off the porch, then dragging her inside.⁵⁵

Records showed police had been called to the home 16 times in the previous three years. The Gaston County Department of Social Services had conducted five visits between March and May 2016. In May, Joshua, who hadn’t been allowed to see his daughter for 18 months, called DSS expressing concerns after Jaylene reported McCullen was abusing her. He feared his daughter was experiencing the same treatment.

DSS closed the case on May 20, less than 12 weeks before Jordyn was killed, reporting they found “no evidence that children lacked supervision or were impacted by parental substance abuse.”⁵⁶ Joshua was furious, later stating that DSS had “either turned a blind eye or they just didn’t see it.”

The community rallied around Jordyn’s memory. Hundreds attended a candlelight vigil the night after her body was discovered.⁵⁷ Local residents organised fundraisers, selling hotdog plates that raised $1,500 in sales and nearly $1,000 in donations to help cover funeral costs.⁵⁸

In July 2018, McCullen’s trial began in Shelby, North Carolina. note]NBC – 36 WNCN, 25 July, 2018 – “Jury Hears Heartbreaking Details”[/note] The jury heard graphic testimony about Jordyn’s injuries and watched McCullen’s recorded confession. The medical examiner testified that some bruises were in varying stages of healing, indicating prolonged abuse. Detective Matt Sampson told the jury that McCullen’s reference to Jordyn as “it” rather than “her” during questioning was a sign he knew she was already dead.

McCullen chose not to testify, and his defence called no witnesses.⁵⁹ After just 22 minutes of deliberation, the jury found him guilty of first-degree murder by torture and felony murder. He was automatically sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.⁶⁰

Joshua later filed a lawsuit against both McCullen and Jaylene, accusing her of failing to provide a safe home and participating in the abuse. In February 2020, Superior Court Judge Robert Bell awarded Joshua $3 million in compensatory damages and $9 million in punitive damages.⁶¹

Jordyn’s death almost sparked legislative change. “Jordyn’s Law” was introduced by Senator Kathy Harrington, requiring DSS to contact non-custodial parents when investigations reveal abuse or neglect.⁶² The law aimed to provide transparency and allow non-custodial parents to advocate for their children’s safety. It was never passed.

Lizzi was known as a hard-working student with a close group of friends and a strong bond with her parents, Bob and Melissa. Her friends described her as fun-loving, goofy, and lovable. To help pay her way through university, she worked at Target in Greenland and volunteered as a guide at the New England Aquarium in Boston, where she had been for four years. Her favourite exhibit was the touch tanks, and those who worked with her said she always greeted people with a massive smile.

Marine biology was Lizzi’s passion. In a college essay, she wrote: “I’ve always loved the ocean and its inhabitants. Someday, I’m determined to be a prominent figure when it comes to protecting our oceans.” Despite her busy schedule, she always made time for her girlfriend, Brittany Atwood, her first girlfriend. They had met in January 2012 and began dating in February. Brittany described Lizzi as beautiful, kind-hearted, caring, and trusting.

On October 9th, 2012, Lizzi texted Brittany from her night class, saying she was going to visit a friend’s apartment in Dover afterwards. She left a note for her aunt and uncle saying she’d be home around midnight. She never returned.

The next morning, Lizzi didn’t show up for her shift at Target. When Brittany called Lizzi’s parents expressing concern after receiving no response to her messages, the family realised something was terribly wrong. Lizzi was reported missing immediately. To vanish like this was completely out of character for someone who always kept everyone informed of her whereabouts.⁶⁴

Investigators interviewed Kathryn McDonough, a friend Lizzi had recently met at Target. McDonough told them Lizzi was supposed to come to her apartment so they could take photographs at a local cemetery. She claimed that when Lizzi didn’t show up, she went to the cemetery alone.

The search intensified. Lizzi’s family travelled to New Hampshire, offering a $10,000 reward. The FBI joined the investigation. Cell phone records showed Lizzi’s phone was last used in Dover at 10:11PM. Her car was later found abandoned in a parking lot at the university in Durham, miles from where she was supposed to be.⁶⁵

Two days into the search, investigators focused on Pierce Island in Portsmouth. The U.S. Coast Guard used sonar and underwater cameras to scan the murky waters of the Piscataqua River. Then came a shocking announcement: 29-year-old Seth Mazzaglia had been arrested and charged with second-degree murder. Though Lizzi’s body had not been found, investigators had determined she was dead.⁶⁶

The arrest stunned those who knew Mazzaglia. He was a martial arts instructor with a black belt in karate and a University of New Hampshire graduate with a theatre degree. But even more shocking was his connection to Lizzi: Mazzaglia was the boyfriend of Kathryn McDonough, and they lived together in the very apartment Lizzi was heading to that night.⁶⁷

A disturbing picture of Mazzaglia quickly emerged. He had profiles on dating and fetish websites under the username “DarkKaiser,” describing himself as dominant and sex-driven, seeking a submissive partner. A former girlfriend, Catherine Fish, revealed that Mazzaglia had strangled her during sex and became sexually abusive, throwing tantrums when she refused his advances.⁶⁸

A neighbour reported hearing a woman’s blood-curdling scream from the apartment on the night Lizzi disappeared.

On Christmas Eve, Kathryn McDonough was also arrested. Prosecutors revealed that she and Mazzaglia had conspired to give investigators a fake alibi, claiming Lizzi never arrived at their apartment. McDonough had even sent text messages to Lizzi after her death, asking where she was, to throw off investigators.⁶⁹

When their lies crumbled, Mazzaglia offered multiple versions of events before settling on a claim that Lizzi died accidentally during a consensual BDSM encounter. Prosecutors rejected this entirely, stating there was nothing consensual about what happened.

The investigation revealed a premeditated plot. Text messages showed that Mazzaglia had demanded McDonough bring him a friend to have sex with. He had written to her describing how he wanted to sexually dominate one of her friends while McDonough watched. Investigators believed the couple had been searching fetish websites for a sex slave and settled on Lizzi, McDonough’s new friend from work.⁷⁰

When Lizzi was invited over, she thought she was coming to watch movies and play video games. The truth was far more sinister.

According to testimony later presented at trial, after playing strip poker, Mazzaglia propositioned Lizzi for sex. She refused. He then said she would watch him have sex with McDonough. Again, she refused. Enraged at being rejected in his own home, Mazzaglia put on gloves, crept up behind Lizzi as she sat on the sofa, and strangled her with a rope. He then raped her as McDonough watched.⁷¹

After Lizzi died, McDonough called friends Roberta Gerkin and Paul Hicock to help. When they arrived, they found Lizzi’s body on the floor with plastic bags over her head. Mazzaglia told them he had “blacked out” and said, “This time I went too far.”⁷²

Mazzaglia led investigators to Pierce Island, where he had disposed of Lizzi’s body by throwing it into the Piscataqua River. The couple had then disposed of evidence in dumpsters, abandoned Lizzi’s car, and returned home around 6:15 AM. According to Mazzaglia, they then had sex because McDonough was excited about what had happened.⁷³

Investigators also discovered letters between the couple in which they conspired to kill Gerkin and Hicock, the only other witnesses, and flee to a country without extradition.

McDonough’s family claimed she had been manipulated by Mazzaglia. She had moved in with him at age 18 while he was 29, cutting off contact with her parents.

In July 2013, McDonough pleaded guilty to hindering prosecution, conspiracy, and witness tampering in exchange for testifying against Mazzaglia. Her sentence of one and a half to three years devastated Lizzi’s family, who called it a “gross injustice.” Lizzi’s mother told McDonough her actions were those of “a cold, calculating woman.” Her grandmother said simply, “You invited her to her death.”

The judge had strong words before McDonough was taken to prison: “But for you, Elizabeth Marriott would be alive today. But for your cowardly and selfish actions, she would be alive or this family would have a body to lay to rest.”

In May 2014, Mazzaglia’s murder trial began. The prosecution portrayed him as a sexually dominant predator who killed Lizzi because she rejected him. The defence tried to blame McDonough entirely, claiming she accidentally killed Lizzi during a rough sex act. McDonough testified for ten days, detailing Mazzaglia’s controlling behaviour and his demand that she bring him a friend to dominate.

After two and a half weeks of testimony, the jury found Seth Mazzaglia guilty of first-degree murder. At sentencing, Lizzi’s family delivered devastating victim impact statements. Her mother stared directly at Mazzaglia and said, “I want you to know that I unequivocally hate you. You are a cowardly, despicable person.”

Mazzaglia was sentenced to life in prison without parole. McDonough was granted parole in 2016.⁷⁴

To honour Lizzi’s memory, her family established the Lizzi Marriott Intrepid Explorer Fund, a scholarship to help others pursue her dream of ocean conservation. Bob said her college essay about protecting the oceans made him smile and choke up, but more than that, it inspired him.

Lizzi’s body has never been found, robbing her family of the chance to say goodbye. With no body, there is no funeral and no gravestone to visit. When they want to speak to Lizzi, they go to Pierce Island and stare into the murky waters that flow out to the Atlantic Ocean.

As her father, Bob, once said: “I want to say goodbye to a person when they die. That is something I’ll never be able to do to my baby.”

But The Last Resort in Port Orange, Florida, is where police arrested Aileen Wuornos on January 9, 1991, while she sat drinking a beer.

This small biker bar, which is located just outside Daytona Beach, has become an unlikely pilgrimage site for true crime enthusiasts, drawn not just by its place in criminal history but by how openly it embraces its dark legacy.

Wuornos was a regular at The Last Resort, sometimes even staying overnight, making it more than just the location of her arrest – it was one of her haunts. She considered the bar enough of a home that she used it as her mailing address, and according to the current owner, letters addressed to Aileen Wuornos still arrive at the bar to this day.

Once you step inside it becomes apparent that this isn’t just any motorcycle bar. The walls and ceiling are covered with inscriptions, framed newspaper stories about the infamous case and other homegrown memorabilia. They serve cold beer and sell memorabilia for people wanting to take home a piece of true crime history.

Pictures of her plaster the walls, including her mugshot, while a mural on the bar’s wooden fence outside depicts her face alongside a list of her victims.

An airbrushed portrait of Wuornos has become a de facto altar for the former patron, transforming the bar into something between a memorial and a macabre museum.

The murders began in late 1989 and continued into 1990. Across central Florida, six bodies turned up – some dumped in wooded clearings, others left on remote dirt roads. All had been shot, robbed, and then left where they were killed. Eventually, investigators would connect all these deaths to Aileen Wuornos, along with a seventh victim whose remains were never recovered.⁷⁵

Wuornos survived by selling sex along Florida’s highways, moving between cheap motels with her girlfriend Tyria Moore. Her method was simple: she’d either proposition men directly or pretend to be stranded, playing the damsel in distress. The media would later dub her the “Damsel of Death.” Sometimes her targets were clients; other times they were simply men who stopped to help what appeared to be a woman in trouble.

The investigation broke open when witnesses spotted two women abandoning a wrecked vehicle in Marion County. That car belonged to Peter Siems, one of the missing men. Inside, detectives recovered a crucial piece of evidence – Wuornos’ fingerprint. Her arrest followed quickly, and a subsequent search of her storage unit revealed a trove of belongings taken from all seven victims.⁷⁶

When confronted, Wuornos didn’t deny the killings. Instead, she framed them as justified: “Sure I shot them, but it was self-defence. I’ve been raped 12 times in the last eight years and I just got sick of it. So I got this gun and was carrying it around. As soon as I got the gun, it got worse.”⁷⁷ While investigators initially wondered if Moore had participated, Wuornos insisted her girlfriend knew nothing. Moore would later testify against her.

January 1992 brought Wuornos to trial for her first killing – the murder of Richard Charles Mallory. Public fascination ran high; female serial killers who hunted strangers were virtually unknown in American crime history.

Mallory, a temperamental electronics store owner with a taste for strip clubs, crossed paths with Wuornos somewhere along the sleazy commercial strip where Highway 1 meets Interstate 4. Their encounter on November 30, 1989, would be fatal. Nearly two weeks passed before hunters stumbled upon his bullet-riddled body in woods outside Ormond Beach.⁷⁸

Defence attorney Tricia Jenkins built her case around self-defence, arguing that Mallory, who was Wuornos’ seventh customer that day, had violently attacked her client, who finally fought back after years of abuse. “She defended herself,” Jenkins told jurors. “Not one more time. Not one more time.” The defence painted a picture of Mallory spending the day intoxicated on vodka and marijuana before turning on Wuornos.⁷⁹

State Attorney John Tanner offered a starkly different narrative. He characterised Wuornos as “a predatory prostitute” driven by “appetite and lust for control.” According to prosecutors, Wuornos became enraged when she thought Mallory wouldn’t pay. She pulled a .22-caliber pistol and shot him while he sat behind the wheel. When he tried to escape by crawling from the vehicle, she fired repeatedly, hitting him at least four more times. Prosecutors noted that Wuornos had given contradictory accounts during her confession, at one point claiming they’d fought over her purse after drinking and having sex.⁸⁰

Tyria Moore delivered damaging testimony. She recounted how Wuornos had confessed while they watched television together, even showing Moore a photograph of Mallory. Moore told the court that Wuornos displayed no guilt and never mentioned being attacked or assaulted, offering no explanation for why she’d killed him.⁸¹

The judge made an unusual ruling that would prove devastating to the defence: he allowed prosecutors to present evidence from all six other murders Wuornos had admitted to, including her videotaped confession. In that tape, Wuornos’ own words undermined her self-defence claims: “Maybe it was self-defence, maybe it was just stupid, just off the wall. Shoot, maybe I could have got away with it. Maybe, I mean, got away from them (the victims). I feel guilty. I am guilty. I’m willing to pay the punishment for that.”⁸²

Prosecutors argued that the pattern was unmistakable – seven men killed with the same weapon, some shot in the back, all killed in nearly identical fashion. This wasn’t self-defence; it was calculated murder. Family members of all seven victims took the stand, both to honour their loved ones and to identify possessions found in Wuornos’ storage unit. Their testimony painted pictures of the victims’ final days and systematically dismantled Wuornos’ claims of acting in self-preservation.⁸³

The victims came from diverse backgrounds: Mallory owned an electronics shop. David Spears worked construction. Charles Carskaddon travelled the rodeo circuit. Peter Siems had retired from the merchant marines. Troy Burress sold sausages. Charles Humphreys had served as both an Air Force major and a police chief. Walter Antonio worked as a trucker, security guard, and reserve officer. Though never mentioned at trial, Mallory had a conviction for attempted rape. The other victims’ families described them as devoted, hardworking men.⁸⁴

Two additional witnesses described narrow escapes. Bobby Lee Copas testified that he’d picked up Wuornos in November 1990 after she claimed she needed to reach Daytona where her sister would help her collect her children from daycare. During the drive, she propositioned him three times. “Up to that point she had been a perfect lady and as far as I knew, she was just a woman in distress,” he recalled. When he refused, she demanded $100 and became hostile. He tricked her into exiting at a gas station and locked the doors. According to Copas, she screamed: “I’ll kill you like them other fat sons of bitches, Copas. I’ll get you, you son of a bitch!” James Della Rosa shared a similar story.⁸⁵

The defence called just one witness – Aileen Wuornos herself. From the stand, she testified that Mallory had raped and bound her. She claimed they’d gone willingly to a secluded wooded area where the situation turned violent. She explained her failure to mention the assault during her initial confession by saying investigators had cut her off, and that she’d only confessed at all to protect Moore from suspicion.⁸⁶

Everything hinged on credibility. Did the jury believe Wuornos had genuinely feared for her life? After only one hour and 35 minutes of deliberation, they returned a guilty verdict.⁸⁷ They unanimously recommended death. Before sentencing, Wuornos made a final statement: “I had no intentions of killing anyone. I told you I was raped, and that’s what happened. I did what I had to do to protect myself.” The judge imposed the death penalty.

March 1992 saw Wuornos plead no contest to killing Charles Humphreys, Troy Burress, and David Spears, earning three more death sentences. She expressed a desire for quick execution, wanting to escape what she called “a crooked, evil planet.” She later pleaded guilty to murdering Charles Carskaddon and Walter Antonio, receiving two additional death sentences. Peter Siems’ murder was never prosecuted since his body was never located.

Over time, Wuornos abandoned her self-defence narrative, claiming she’d actually been motivated by robbery. However, in a later interview with documentarian Nick Broomfield, she suggested she’d only changed her story because she was exhausted by death row and ready to die.

On October 9, 2002, that wish was fulfilled. Aileen Wuornos was executed at 9:47AM, becoming the tenth woman put to death in the United States since capital punishment resumed in 1976. Her final statement was cryptic and rambling: “Yes, I would just like to say I’m sailing with the rock, and I’ll be back, like Independence Day, with Jesus. June 6, like the movie. Big mother ship and all, I’ll be back, I’ll be back.”⁸⁸

Back at The Last Resort, her image still watches over the bar where she once felt at home.

The couple were pillars of their community. Bart had served as a Boy Scout den leader, while Krista took pride in being both a dedicated mother and the supportive “work-mother” to her colleagues. They owned a family cabin on White Lake’s Sawyer Lake Road, built by Bart’s father, where they spent weekends enjoying the tranquil 153-acre lake surrounded by dense woodland.

Their youngest son Chandler was their pride and joy. The parents frequently boasted to friends about his impressive achievements: graduating from Madison Area Technical College’s renewable resources engineering program, working at American Family Insurance, and most exciting of all, landing a coveted position at Elon Musk’s SpaceX in Florida. When Chandler wasn’t working, he spent time with his girlfriend Catheryn Mellender, whose family owned a farm in the Cottage Grove area.

But beneath this picture-perfect facade lay a web of deception that would ultimately lead to unthinkable tragedy.

On July 7, 2021, at 11:30AM, Chandler walked into the Northeast Precinct police station to file a missing person report. ⁸⁹ His parents, he explained, had left for their cabin on July 1st with another couple and had failed to return as planned. He showed officers a text message purportedly from his mother on July 4th: “Made it safely, cant get anything through, and yes, it’s packed. Going to white lake today for the parade and will be home on Monday night/Tuesday early. Love you lots!”

When investigators arrived at the family home on Oak Spring Circle, they found both of the Haldersons’ vehicles in the garage. Chandler explained that his parents had been picked up by friends he couldn’t identify. Inside the house, Deputy Seeley noticed sections of removed flooring and the outline of a half wall that was no longer there. In the basement, they observed a large piece of glass missing from the fireplace. Chandler claimed the dogs had broken it, cutting his toe and causing bleeding.

The cabin at White Lake told a different story. When investigators knocked on the door, no one answered. Peering through windows revealed that the cabin appeared unused for an extended period.

As the investigation deepened, inconsistencies in Chandler’s story emerged. ⁹⁰ Daniel Kroninger, Krista’s colleague, revealed that she had been scheduled to work on July 2nd but never showed up-unusual for someone so punctual. When Daniel visited the Halderson home that afternoon, he found both vehicles in the garage and a coffee table knocked over inside. After persistent knocking, Chandler appeared at a window and directed him to a side door, where he emerged soaking wet with a towel, claiming he’d just showered. A bandage covered his foot, which he said was injured when he broke the fireplace while playing with the dogs.

Neighbours found Chandler’s explanations increasingly implausible. When invited for dinner, he told them his parents had taken large amounts of money and alcohol to the cabin-completely out of character for the penny-pinching couple who rarely drank. The supposed mysterious friends who picked them up also struck neighbours as odd, since Bart and Krista always brought their own vehicle on trips for independence.

The breakthrough came when investigators spoke with Catheryn’s mother, Dulce Mellender. She described Chandler’s strange behaviour on July 5th when he arrived at their farm. He asked to swim in their pool but never actually got in the water. Dulce watched as he positioned his father’s car near their largest shed, then wandered the wood line in what she described as a daze.

Days later, Dulce noticed vultures circling the woodland area where she’d observed Chandler.

When investigators searched the Mellender property, Detective Brent Baverstock followed tire tracks from the shed into tall grass. Seventy-five yards into the woodland, he discovered a slight mound covered with foliage. Beneath it lay a horrific sight: a human torso covered in maggots, dressed in grey cargo pants with a black belt and nylon rope around the waist. Nearby lay a Target bag filled with bloody rags.

The medical examiner identified the remains as Bart Halderson. ⁹¹ Dr. Cori Ann Breslauer found multiple gunshot wounds, including an exit wound under the right ribcage, an abdominal wound that hit the spinal cord, and a gunshot to the neck. The injuries came from a rifle, and the death was ruled a homicide.

Additional evidence emerged from the property: scissors, a saw blade, and bolt cutters in a tank, with fatty tissue embedded on the saw blade’s sharp edge.

As Chandler was arrested on charges of providing false information, investigators uncovered the shocking truth: his entire life was a fabrication. ⁹² He wasn’t enrolled at Madison Area Technical College, didn’t work at American Family Insurance, and had no job offer from SpaceX. For years, he had created hundreds of fake emails from supposed college staff and insurance company representatives to maintain his elaborate deception.

In reality, Chandler was unemployed. While his parents believed he was working remotely in his bedroom, he spent his days playing video games. The net had begun closing in June 2021 when his suspicious parents started questioning his financial situation. His excuses about wage mix-ups and fabricated HR department emails were wearing thin.

The final straw came when Chandler claimed a concussion from falling down stairs would prevent him from taking the SpaceX position. Concerned, Bart contacted Madison Area Technical College directly to help with his son’s graduation documents-only to discover that Chandler had never been enrolled. ⁹³

Following Chandler’s arrest, investigators found additional evidence. Cell phone data placed him in Sauk City on July 3rd, where a witness saw a man matching his description walking from the Wisconsin River area. Searching the wooded region near the river, investigators discovered more human remains: a severed leg, chunks of rotting flesh, a severed foot, and other body parts. DNA testing confirmed these belonged to Krista Halderson. ⁹⁴

The investigation revealed the full scope of Chandler’s crimes. At the Halderson home, investigators found Bart and Krista’s cell phones and driver’s licenses hidden in shoes under a shelving unit, wrapped in paper towels and tin foil. Analysis showed that the text message from “Krista” reporting their safe arrival had been sent from the family home after both parents were dead.

Other evidence included: a bullet casing matching ammunition from a rifle gifted to Chandler by an online gaming friend; the rifle itself, hidden behind boards in Dulce’s shed; an axe covered in human blood; human skull fragments and over 200 bone fragments in the fireplace ashes; rope matching that found around Bart’s torso; and human blood in the freezer. ⁹⁵

Chandler’s internet searches told their own story: “Body found Wisconsin,” “woman’s body found in Wisconsin,” “Wisconsin dismembered body found,” and searches for news about Bart and Krista. ⁹⁶

Chandler’s trial began January 2, 2022. ^{97 98} Prosecutors argued that the murders occurred on July 1st after Bart discovered his son’s lies. They theorised Chandler shot his father, then ambushed Krista when she returned from work at 5PM. Surveillance showed Chandler leaving home just after 8PM to buy ice, presumably to preserve the bodies.

Over the next five days, prosecutors claimed, Chandler dismembered his parents’ bodies, burning some remains in the fireplace and disposing of others across Wisconsin. ^{99 100} The defence offered little resistance, with attorney Crystal Vera conceding guilt on most charges while questioning only the first-degree intentional homicide counts.

The jury deliberated just two hours before finding Chandler guilty on all counts: two counts of first-degree intentional homicide, mutilating corpses, hiding corpses, and falsifying information about missing persons. ¹⁰¹

At sentencing on March 16, 2022, Judge John Hyland handed down life imprisonment without the possibility of parole-only the third time in his career he’d imposed such a sentence. ¹⁰² “I cannot conceive of a way to fulfil my duty to the public I serve were I to perceive that at some point the individual who committed these crimes should be released back into that public,” he stated.

Assistant District Attorney Brown noted the tragic irony: “When faced with, in the grand scheme of things, a minor inconvenience in his life, Mr. Halderson chose to commit first-degree homicide two times.”

Even at sentencing, Chandler showed no remorse, speaking only to announce his intention to appeal.

Outside the courthouse, Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett wore a yellow rose provided by the Halderson family-a representation of Bart and Krista’s missing souls. His words captured the tragedy’s scope: “The Halderson family lost three today: Bart and Krista in July of last year, and today Chandler.”

The case served as a chilling reminder of how a web of lies, when threatened with exposure, can drive someone to the most unthinkable acts. Chandler Halderson had grown up with every advantage, supported by loving parents who believed in his fabricated achievements. Rather than face the uncomfortable truth of his deception, he chose murder, dismemberment, and an elaborate cover-up that ultimately failed.

Bart and Krista Halderson, described by prosecutors as “normal folks just trying to live a normal life,” became victims of their son’s inability to confront reality. Their story serves as a tragic testament to how far some will go to avoid taking responsibility for their actions, and the devastating consequences when lies spiral beyond control.

The home belonged to Kenneth Stoddard, who lived with his wife, Misty Stoddard and their children ranging in age between 4 and 15. It was a blended family. The young girl who had stopped breathing was Kenneth’s 11-year-old daughter from a prior relationship, Melissa Stoddard.

According to Misty, that evening, Melissa had been upset and had refused to go to bed. She said that she gave Melissa some night-time medicine and then sent her back to bed where she quietened down. However, Misty claimed that when she checked on Melissa sometime later, she found her unconscious and not breathing, so she called 911.¹⁰⁴

Paramedics entered the secluded home and were taken back by how dirty it was. They found Melissa laying on her back in the living room. She wasn’t breathing. The room was dark and the stench of vomit was overpowering. Kenneth was still on the phone to 911, performing chest compressions with one hand. As the paramedics got closer, they could see marks on Melissa’s arms – some fresh, some older. What struck them as odd was that Melissa wasn’t wearing pyjamas. It was late at night and she was wearing jean shorts and a long-sleeved shirt. There was duct-tape on her wrists and ankles.¹⁰⁵

The two paramedics, Scott McComas and Billy Green, found the Stoddards’ behaviour peculiar. They both kept getting in the way as they desperately tried to revive Melissa. They were reluctant to provide medical information and the paramedics couldn’t help but feel as though the concern they were expressing for Melissa’s welfare was not genuine. As Scott later said: “It’s just the vibe I felt. It’s just a weird feeling.”¹⁰⁶

After unsuccessful CPR attempts, paramedics rushed Melissa to Doctors Hospital in Sarasota. At the hospital, Melissa’s heart began to beat again, but her heart had stopped beating for almost an hour. Her brain was swollen from the lack of oxygen and she was suffering from severe brain damage. She was transported to All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, where she was classified as brain dead.¹⁰⁷

The doctors noticed that Melissa had ligature marks to her upper arms, wrists, ankles and thighs. She was severely underweight – five foot five inches and weighing only 88 pounds. There were stitches above her left eye, fresh lacerations to her wrists, a broken left hand, and marks to her neck and buttocks. Bruises to her thighs looked as though she had been beaten with a belt, and her feet were swollen and bruised. Skin was peeling off her wrists. Hospital social worker Ken Rigsby said: “It was possibly the most horrific case I have ever worked on.”¹⁰⁸

Upon informing police of this disturbing revelation, they interviewed Kenneth and Misty. The couple claimed that sometimes Melissa needed to be restrained because of behavioural issues. They said she was autistic and would be restrained to protect both herself and her other siblings. Kenneth admitted they would bind Melissa’s wrists to her ankles in a hog-tied fashion using shoelace-style strings, Velcro straps, tape and other bindings.¹⁰⁹

When police spoke with the other children in the home, they revealed a very disturbing portrait. They said that Melissa was routinely tied up as punishment and that Kenneth and Misty would put duct tape over her mouth to stop her from screaming and crying. The couple would tie Melissa to a wooden board where she would remain for long periods. Melissa’s 15-year-old brother told police that he had helped Misty remove the wooden board from Melissa’s bedroom before the ambulance arrived.¹¹⁰

Police recovered two wooden boards from the woods near the home, along with a helmet fashioned with restraints and several rolls of duct tape. The wooden boards had blood, hair and fecal matter stuck to them.

The children detailed more horrific abuse. Sometimes Melissa would be tied to her bed. She wasn’t allowed to eat inside with the rest of the family – instead, she was fed in a fenced spot outside which the children called “the corral.” On occasion, Melissa would be tied up and put in a swimming pool. Despite having a bedroom, she would be forced to sleep outside on a filthy mattress.¹¹¹

Life for Melissa wasn’t always this tragic. Before moving to Florida, she had lived with her mother, Lisha Stoddard, in Greenboro, North Carolina. Lisha and Kenneth had met while both serving in the Marine Corps. They were married in 1998 and Melissa was born in 2001. Like her older brother, Melissa was diagnosed with autism. When Melissa was five years old, Lisha and Kenneth divorced.

In North Carolina, Melissa attended McIver Education Center where her teachers recalled how she loved to re-enact The Cat in the Hat and The Lion King. She was a loving child, always curious about those around her. While she had challenges including a hot temper and tantrums due to her autism, staff said she was showing steady progress in the highly structured setting.¹¹²

In 2012, Melissa’s life changed forever. During a visit to Kenneth and Misty in Florida with her older brother, Misty discovered that the 13-year-old boy had sexually abused Melissa. The boy was arrested and charged. Given an ultimatum that Melissa and her brother could not remain under the same roof, it was decided that Melissa would move to Florida to live with Kenneth, Misty, and their five children.¹¹³

Lisha agreed to this arrangement, having no cause for concern. Kenneth had always been a good father during their marriage and had never restrained or abused children in the past.

From the moment Melissa arrived in Florida in September 2012, she was treated differently than her step-siblings. She was forced to eat outside and given different food than the rest of the family. Kenneth and Misty put Melissa on a strict gluten-free diet which they believed would help her autism.¹¹⁴

Initially, Melissa attended Oak Park School where she showed progress, much like she had in North Carolina. Her communication skills were developing and she was able to express her needs. One teacher even commented to Kenneth: “Your daughter could have gone to Harvard” because of how well Melissa had been behaving.

However, as her language skills improved, she began offering insight into home life, shouting phrases like “get out of my house” followed by “now look what you’ve done. All right, that’s it” – mimicking what she heard at home. She had problems with the restricted food, becoming upset when other children were allowed treats and begging for food.

Starting in November, Melissa began missing school. Kenneth and Misty claimed the school wasn’t adhering to her strict diet. The last day Melissa attended school was November 15th. Staff became concerned about her wellbeing, with a guidance counsellor going to the family’s home, but Misty refused to open the door.¹¹⁵

One teacher, Paul Squeo, became so concerned he attempted to report to DCF anonymously but failed to complete the submission. Meanwhile, someone at the home was using the internet to search disturbing terms like “how to restrain a child at night,” “medication for psychopaths,” “best gag to keep somebody quiet” and “human muzzle.”

On December 1st, Kenneth purchased a 4 by 8 sheet of plywood, returning the following week to purchase four black Velcro straps. He bought three rolls of duct tape, captured on surveillance footage.

Melissa had completely fallen through the cracks, cut off from everybody except those in the home. A couple of weeks before she died, she attempted to seek help at Walmart, approaching several strangers asking for help. None thought to call for assistance.

A neighbour, Kevin Dermody, had heard sounds of slapping, cursing from a woman, and a girl crying coming from the Stoddard home for around three months. The noises were so terrible he considered calling 911 but decided not to, fearing police wouldn’t do anything and the child might be harmed more.¹¹⁶

Police obtained a search warrant for Kenneth and Misty’s computer, Nikon camera and cellphone, discovering they had documented the abuse. One video showed Melissa kneeling on a concrete slab in the yard at night, looking into the laundry room where Misty stood with a video camera. A step-sibling can be heard questioning: “Why can’t she just go away? Why is she crying?” Melissa begged to come inside before wailing, throwing her arms in the air and kicking her legs. Eventually, her spirit completely broken, she fell silent and buried her head in her hands.

Other videos showed Melissa sitting on a concrete slab with her arms bound behind her, staring ahead with dried blood on her nose and a makeshift bandage on her head. Police also uncovered photographs documenting Melissa’s decline. A Halloween 2012 photo showed Melissa smiling in her witch costume, but by a month later, photographs showed her with a swollen lip and cuts across her face.

Unfortunately, after five days at the hospital, it was decided that Melissa’s life support should be turned off. She was pronounced dead at 5:39AM on December 17th. Her autopsy determined she had died from hypoxia – deprivation of adequate oxygen supply.

Two days after Melissa died, Kenneth was arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse. Misty, who was pregnant, attempted to take her own life before being arrested on the same charges. The Department of Children and Families took custody of the five other children.

Misty stood trial first in June 2014, with charges elevated to first-degree murder. The prosecution detailed how Melissa had been tortured and abused, arguing that Misty had covered Melissa’s mouth with duct-tape and left her alone to suffocate.¹¹⁷

Misty’s own children testified against her. Her 16-year-old son, Jarrett Eastman, explained how Melissa’s autism left his mother frustrated and detailed how both Kenneth and Misty would strap Melissa to the wooden board and gag her.

Misty testified on her own behalf, claiming she loved Melissa and that Kenneth was responsible for the restraints. She made the startling claim that the plywood boards had actually been purchased for sexual bondage purposes between her and Kenneth.¹¹⁸

The jury deliberated for just two hours before finding Misty guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole plus an additional 30 years.

Kenneth was subsequently convicted of aggravated manslaughter, aggravated child abuse and tampering with evidence. During his sentencing, the judge addressed him: “The single most important duty of a parent is to protect their child. You failed, miserably.” Kenneth was sentenced to 65 years in prison.

They said that they had awoken in the morning to find that James was missing from their home. They explained that they had searched for James for a couple of hours but to no avail, and then came down to the police station.¹¹⁹

James was a first-grade student at Rosa Parks Elementary School. The principal of the school, Tracey Neely, said that James was a happy and outgoing student. He was a real loveable little boy, and would greet his teachers each morning with a massive hug. Even when he returned to school with the COVID protocols in place, James always tried to sneak in a hug or at the very least, a high five.¹²⁰

James was described as a white male standing at around 3 feet tall and weighing around 42lbs. He had red hair and blue eyes. According to Gosney, her son was wearing a red shirt with blue and red Batman pyjama pants.

Straight away, police were suspicious of Gosney and Hamilton. When they came in to report James missing, they both had conflicting versions of events when it came to the last time that they had seen James. It appeared as though they couldn’t quite get their stories straight, so police separated them and spoke to them individually.¹²¹

It wouldn’t take long until the truth finally came out, and it was more horrific than anybody ever could have imagined.

When investigators momentarily left the room, Hamilton could be heard asking himself: “Man, why did this boy have to do this? James, why do you do this stupid stuff?” In the other interrogation room, investigators were speaking with Gosney and her fake story had begun to unravel.¹²²

After sticking to her story for several hours, Gosney finally told investigators that at around 3AM on Saturday morning, she drove James and his two siblings, who were 9-years-old and 7-years-old, to Rush Run Wildlife Area in Somerville. Gosney wasn’t taking her children there for an early morning day-trip. She explained that she took James and his siblings to the relatively isolated area to either scare them or abandon them.

She pulled over in the parking lot and ordered the three children out of the van. She said that James had reached out and held on to the van door handle, presumably trying to get back in the van. It was late at night, dark, and the idea of being out in the wilderness alone would be terrifying for most adults, never mind children. James grabbed a hold of the door handle and clung on for life while Gosney drove off at a high rate of speed, dragging him for some distance.¹²³

Gosney explained that James eventually let go of the handle and she continued to drive. She said she returned to the scene around 30 to 40 minutes later, and said that she found James dead in the middle of the parking lot. He had sustained a head injury.¹²⁴

She ordered the two other children to get back in the van and bundled James’ lifeless body back into the car. She told the investigators that she had placed James’ body in the van “nice and softly.”

When they got home, she took him upstairs and placed him in a bedroom while the other two children went to bed. When they were asleep, Gosney and Hamilton drove James’ body from the home to Lawrenceburg in Indiana, which was around an hour away. Here, they pulled over on the I-275 bridge and threw his body into the Ohio River after weighing it down with a concrete block.¹²⁵

She opened up further, providing more poignant details of James’ last moments on earth. She told the investigators that when she pulled up in the parking lot, James didn’t want to get out. His two siblings got out but he refused. She stated: “I was like, ‘Get out.’ I told the kids I was sorry, the older kids were the only ones who got out.”

She said that James replied: “Mommy, I don’t want to be here.” He eventually got out of the van but he kept trying to open the back door to climb back in. She confessed that she knew she dragged James as he clung on to the handle. She explained that she couldn’t hear much because she had the music on loud but said that at one point, she heard the children screaming and heard a noise, but didn’t stop to investigate what this noise was or investigate whether James was okay. She simply continued to drive before eventually returning.¹²⁶

Hamilton eventually came clean as well. He stressed that he had not been with Gosney when she killed James but admitted that they had both taken the children out to Rush Run beforehand and dropped the children off as a scare tactic and as a form of punishment.¹²⁷

With the gruesome revelation, investigators would embark on the Ohio River to begin the search for James. They were assisted by trained searchers but the water levels were extremely high and the water was treacherous, which hampered the search.

Gosney and Hamilton were both arrested. Gosney was charged with murder, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence while Hamilton was charged with abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. Gosney’s bond was set at $1 million and Hamilton’s was set at $100,000.

Police Chief David Birk said that Gosney had not shown any remorse for her actions. He said during the press conference: “This has really touched my soul and my heart. My kids are older, but my youngest is 16, but I’m just sitting here, you know, the poor six year old has no idea what’s going on and what’s happening, and for the other kids to go through this too. It’s just heartbreaking.”¹²⁸

As news of James’ murder swept throughout the media, tributes for him would come in. The principal at his school, Tracy Neely, sent out a statement on the Monday morning. It read: “We are all mourning the loss of our friend James today. James was a happy and joyful soul who loved school. On the days he was in class, he would give hugs to all his teachers as he walked into school.”

On Monday night, a vigil was held at Garner Park in Middletown. Hundreds of people would show up to pay tribute to James, including his father, Lewis Hutchinson. At the vigil, Lewis said to the crowd: “I don’t even know how to process all this. He was just my world.” The community would light candles, hold a moment of silence and then release balloons into the air.¹²⁹

A celebration of life was held in James’ honour at Barnitz Stadium, right beside Rosa Parks Elementary school. The stadium was filled to the brim. Alongside the podium was a large painting of James. It had been painted by high school students in Rick Krebs’ art class.

Prosecutors would reveal that in the days leading up to James’ murder, both Gosney and Hamilton had hog-tied the hands and legs of both James and his two siblings, and then placed cloths in their mouths and left them in this position in a closet for several hours.

The family had lived quite a transient lifestyle, bouncing from area to area and from hotel to hotel. Hamilton didn’t have a job and had a lengthy criminal record which spanned decades. In 1999 he was convicted of burglary and then in 2005, he was convicted on a weapons charge. These were both felony convictions.

Gosney also had a fourth child, but years earlier, that child had been removed from her care, placed into foster care and then subsequently adopted. It was quite similar to Gosney’s own background. She had lived with her father and his girlfriend but when she was 12-years-old, she was removed by Hamilton County Children’s Services.

As investigators were trying to establish a motive, Gosney would provide one. She claimed that for some time, Hamilton had been pressuring her to get rid of James and his two siblings. She said that Hamilton beat the children and had tied them up.

Gosney’s court-appointed defence lawyer, David Washington, would file a motion seeking an insanity plea for his client. However, towards the end of April, Gosney was found competent to stand trial and the insanity plea was withdrawn.

The psychologist report revealed that Gosney was a childhood sexual assault survivor. It read in part: “It was also noted that she did not appear to present with distress as she discussed the offenses charged, including the death of her youngest child instead, discussing this in a matter-of-fact manner and presenting with no emotional attachment to others.”

As Gosney’s trial date was fast approaching, she appeared in court in mid-August. During the court-hearing, she unexpectedly pleaded guilty to murder and to two counts of felony child endangerment. The guilty plea had been part of a plea agreement in which the remaining 13 counts against Gosney were dismissed.¹³⁰

Hamilton would follow suit, appearing in court shortly thereafter to plead guilty to kidnapping, gross abuse of a corpse and two counts of child endangering.

Brittany Gosney would be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 21 years. It was the maximum sentence that could be handed down. Before the sentence was handed down by Judge Powers, Gosney was asked twice if she had anything she wanted to say. Both times she said no.

Outside of court, Prosecutor Gmoser touched on this and underlined what he said was a lack of remorse. He stated: “Did any of you hear the words, ‘I am sorry?’ Did any of you hear, ‘I apologize for this’ to the people of Butler County and to the nation who have followed this case?”

James Hamilton was sentenced to a minimum of 15 years in prison and a maximum of 19 years and was ordered to register as a child victim offender and a violent offender once released. Before the sentence was handed down, Hamilton read from a piece of paper. He apologized for his actions, said that he felt remorse, and expressed his hopes for James’ body to be recovered from the Ohio River.¹³¹

It was revealed that the hard drive Gosney and Hamilton had disposed of was recovered. It showed Gosney leaving the residence that night with her three children in tow. At 4:53AM, the van returns. Gosney gets out of the car carrying the lifeless body of James. He only has on one shoe. One of his siblings trails behind, carrying his other shoe.¹³²

A bench memorializing James was placed at his former elementary school. The bench contained a photograph of James smiling on the back, alongside the words: “The greatest thing we can do is to help somebody know that they are loved and capable of loving.” Since James’ body had not been recovered, the bench symbolizes something close to a gravestone.¹³³