‘Everyone saw him as a celestial being and no one dared doubt him. People were blind here. It was a huge shock to discover the truth,’ said Michael Mueller, a 47-year-old member of the community’s newly elected reform committee. Fiona Ortiz, Reuters article 8th November 2004, ‘Secret Cult Breaks 43-Year Spell’
A secretive German community that according to a declassified CIA file operated as a cult and could have provided refuge for Nazi war criminals. Hunting Hitler s2e8: Nazi Colony, History 2017
Built with a military perspective. ibid.
Deep in the foothills of this mountain range set in this beautiful landscape of low forested hills and fast flowing rivers is a small community of Germans who have lived here for the last fifty years. But this is not Germany or even Europe and these mountains are not the Alps but the Andes in central Chile … Colonia Dignidad, the Dignity Colony. But behind this idyllic facade hides a place where unspeakable things have happened. The Colony: Chile’s Dark Past Uncovered, Faris Kermani, Al Jazeera 2013
‘A paedophiles’ paradise.’ ibid.
Its residents have revealed horrifying stories of child abuse and forced labour, torture and killings. ibid.
By 1962 [Paul] Schafer and his group had established themselves as a charity in central Chile. They set up a farm, a bakery and even a state-subsidised hospital that offered free treatment to the local population, all with the blessing of the Chilean authorities. Schafer had his own very particular vision of how his community should be organised. ibid.
Schafer was creating a community that obeyed and followed his every command and where everyone looked up to the Permanent Uncle as a god. All this control allowed Schafer a free run to do as he wished, not only with the adults but also with the children … ibid.
Schafer reinforced this power through an elaborate system of mutual betrayal. ibid.
Frightened that he would have face criminal charges Paul Schafer fled just as he had done nearly forty years earlier. Schafer’s inner circle continued to assert its hold over the colony, but with investigators on their heels, they had to make changes to cover their tracks. ibid.
SCHARA, GARY: True Crime Recaps 2021 -
Lisa Ziegert: She was working a shift as a cashier at a gift shop in a busy strip mall when she mysteriously vanished in April 1982 … Her case went cold until a breakthrough in DNA technology helped lead police to her killer 25 years later. True Crime Recaps: Two Cold Cases Solved by DNA, Youtube 33.40, 2021
She had been left in a heavily wooded area near an almost hidden service road off Route 75 … She tried to fight off the brutal attack. ibid.
In 1993 one of those tipsters named her ex-husband, Gary Schara … He was obsessed with details of the murder and its aftermath. ibid.
SCHEANETTE, DALE DEVON: American Murder TV -
Christmas Eve 1996: Outside the Pear Tree apartments in Arlington, Texas, Skyla Prescott is looking for her sister Wendy. American Murder, CI 2017
22-year-old Wendy Prescott is dead, murdered in her own apartment. ibid.
26-year-old Christine Vu was found murdered in her apartment three months earlier under almost identical circumstances. ibid.
The media dubs the murderer the Bathtub Killer and the case soon gets national coverage. ibid.
SCHIRMER, ARTHUR: True Crime with Aphrodite Jones TV - Mail online -
A shocking suicide at a church. A minister with some sinister secrets. He was violating every commandment he could. It’s a case of murder, blind faith and betrayal. True Crime with Aphrodite Jones s4e1: Sins of the Father, ID 2013
All the blood in the garage is Betty’s. It looks like a homicide. ibid.
[He] may have murdered his first wife. ibid.
Although she had suffered a fractured skull as well as injuries to her face, body, arms and legs, the coroner made no determination as to whether her death was an accident or a homicide, and the case was closed.
Authorities reopened the investigation after Schirmer was charged in Monroe County with using a crowbar to kill his second wife, Betty, in 2008, and staging a car accident in an effort to conceal the crime.
Schirmer was convicted of first-degree murder in that case and is serving life without parole.
He faces a maximum of 40 years in Jewel Schirmer’s death and will be sentenced at a later date. Mail online article 1st July 2014, ‘Pastor jailed for murdering second wife in staged accident shocks family and pleads no contest to the charge that he killed his first wife then pretended she fell down the stairs’
SCHLICHER, ANDREAS: Gabriel Weston: Catching History’s Criminals TV -
June 1908: Margarethe Filbert had been strangled and decapitated and her head was nowhere to be found … [Georg] Popp began with some chemical tests … The mud on Schlicher’s shoes was a record of where he’d been on the day of the murder … He collected soil samples … Gabriel Weston: Catching History’s Criminals II: Traces of Guilt, BBC 2015
SCHMIDT, WOLFGANG: World’s Most Evil Killers TV -
In October 1989 the body of a woman was found in a forest on the outskirts of the village of Deetz in East Germany. She’d been hit by a hammer, strangled and sexually assaulted. Scattered around her body her underwear, stolen from a washing line. Police had no idea at the time that this was the work of a perverted serial killer. The murderer was a 23-year-old man named Wolfgang Schmidt. He’d been roaming the local woods in search of prey to satisfy his depraved sexual fantasies. He became known as the Beast of Beelitz. Over the next two years he would kill a further four women and a baby. World’s Most Evil Killers s2e8: Wolfgang/Beate Schmidt, Pick TV 2018
SCHMITZ, JOHN: Trial By Media TV -
John Schmitz: I think I just shot a man. I’m just turning myself in. I just shot this guy! Because he played a very bad fucking thing on me: he took me on Jenny Jones. Trial by Media s1e1: Talk Show Murder, 911 call, Netflix 2020
Court TV took what was already a big story and blew it up. ibid. observer
SCHUSTER, LARISSA: True Crime Recaps 2022 -
The Acid Lady: To her unfortunate husband however Larissa Schuster’s particular brand of acid served a much darker purpose … [he] was found inside a storage unit in Fresno, California, in July 2003; he was floating in a 55-gallon drum of hydrochloric acid. True Crime Recaps: Meet the Acid Lady! Hear Her Sick Plan to Destroy Her Ex! Youtube 30.41, 2022
They got married in 1982 and 3 years later they had a daughter they named Kristen followed by a son in 1990 … but their marriage was far from blissful: she was a demanding domineering woman. ibid.
SCRIPPS, JOHN MARTIN: The Garden City Butcher TV - Singapore Infopedia TV -
Singapore: Suspecting the worst, detectives immediately set about linking the blood in room 1511 to the missing South African, Gerard George Lowe. On 13th March 1995 two decomposed legs were found floating along Clifford Pier in Singapore. The Garden City Butcher, Crime Channel, CI 2010
Another grisly discovery: the decomposed thighs and torso. ibid.
The name Simon Davis was a pseudonym for John Martin Scripps, a semi-literate petty criminal. ibid.
He was never charged for the two murders in Thailand. ibid.
John Martin was hanged on 19 April 1996. Timothy MacDowall’s body was never found. ibid.
John Martin Scripps, aka. John Martin, 35, was the first Westerner to be hung in Singapore for murder on 19 April 1996. He was convicted in the sensational ‘Body-parts’ or ‘Black bin-bags’ murder of South African tourist, Gerard George Lowe, 32, in March 1995. The police were alerted when various parts of Lowe’s dismembered body were found floating in black bin-bags off Clifford Pier. Investigations led to the arrest of Martin, his eventual conviction and death sentence. Singapore Infopedia online article
SCOTT, DOROTHY JANE murder: True Crime Recaps 2022 -
The disappearance of Dorothy Jane Scott is a true story it’s still unsolved. True Crime Recaps: Dorothy Jane Scott, Youtube 12.23, 2022
For months Dorothy had been getting bizarre phone calls from a taunting man … both at home and at work … She believed the caller was someone she knew … He certainly knew a lot about her. ibid.
1980: On the night of her disappearance Dorothy’s colleagues called the police … They found her station wagon in flames … No-one was in the car. ibid.
He continued to call to torment [her mother]. ibid.
Four years after Dorothy disappeared, partially burnt human remains were found at a construction site ten miles from where Dorothy’s car had been found … A comparison of dental records confirmed her identity. ibid.
The search for her murderer continued and so did the suspect’s calls. ibid.
SEARLE, STEPHEN: Meet, Marry, Murder TV -
Police are called to a quiet cul-de-sac in the sleepy Suffolk town of Stowmarket. It’s 10 o’clock Saturday December 30th. A retired couple in the 60s live in the 4-bedroomed family home. Meet, Marry, Murder s1e5, Netflix 2022
On one occasion believing that Anne was not showing him enough respect he fired a shotgun at her head. ibid.