Hello everyone, I am a tripartite investigator, three sisters.
1 fried chicken shop, 7 victims, without any witnesses, to the police for the first time to check there is nothing unusual.
It was not until 5 hours later that all the victims' families reported the crime and found them in the freezer of the shop, the crime scene was extremely tragic, the number of the special case team reached nearly 100 people at the highest, and there was no gain, and even how many criminal suspects there were.
What happened to the fried chicken shop that night?
After Christmas 1993, a massacre took place in the city of Palatine, which was still shrouded in festive joy. Seven people in the city's Brown Fried Chicken Shop were brutally murdered, but the killers went unpunished for nearly a decade. When the killer appeared, the key piece of evidence turned out to be an inconspicuous piece of fried chicken in the trash can.
What's going on here?
1
Snowy nights
January 8, 1993, in Palatine, Illinois, USA. Not long after Christmas, the people of the town were still immersed in the joyful atmosphere of the festival, which was an ordinary night.
Brown Fried Chicken Shop is a chain of stores that is loved by people on the street. The fried chicken shop closes at nine o'clock every night and goes home on time, which is supposed to be the case tonight, but a phone call breaks the calm of the night.
Fried chicken shop exterior
Paladin's police station received a phone call from the family of the owner of the town's Brown fried chicken shop. Two of their daughters reported that their parents, who had been able to leave work at nine o'clock on time, did not see them return until 10:30, so they hoped that the police station would help them to see the situation.
Paladin is a small city with a small population, simple customs, and the police department rarely handles criminal cases that are too vicious.
Darkness will always emerge in the brightest light, and no one knows what the call will mean.
After the police department received this call, it only thought that the boss and the two were going out to a party with their colleagues, or that there was something delayed, so they did not pay too much attention to it, but only sent patrol members to check it out.
Dispatch patrols
After the patrol team arrived at the fried chicken shop, they found that there was no abnormality, the fried chicken shop lights were turned off, the door was locked, and there was no one in the shop. However, what the police department did not expect was that at 12:30 a.m., several families called the police to say that their families had not returned home. Coincidentally, these people happen to be employees of the fried chicken shop.
At this point, the police department shook its head and felt that things were not good. They quickly dispatched police officers to check the fried chicken shop, and at first there was still no discovery. But when they turned to the back of the restaurant, they noticed something strange, the back door of the restaurant was actually hidden, and the police instinctively alerted and immediately raised their guns.
They pushed the door lightly, and then a smell of blood came over them, and the officers were more cautious, and they turned on the dining room light in the dark, and they were greeted by blood stains on the kitchen floor.
Then, in the 2 freezers in the kitchen, they saw a picture that they would never forget for a lifetime, so much so that when they appeared in court later, the description of the judge and the jury went like this:
"We couldn't believe our eyes, one body pressed against the other, chaotic, so cruel that we couldn't count how many people had died in the house."
2
The course of the case
Police eventually found 7 victims, 2 of whom were in the cold room on the west side and 5 in the freezer on the east side.
Diagram
Judging from the traces at the scene and the wounds of all the victims, everyone had a lot of gunshot marks on their bodies, and even several victims had knife wounds on their necks that had been cut. At first, the police officers did not notice anything unusual, because everything was too calm, the victim had no signs of struggle, and there was no damage to the doors and windows.
There were no witnesses at the scene, no fingerprints were left, and in terms of the conditions and technical means of handling the case at that time, this was simply an unsolvable problem.
Photograph of the victim
Soon after, however, the case escalated, from Paladin to Illinois and even Chicago, and finally, the police of the three places, together with the FBI and the FBI, formed a task force of nearly 100 people to solve the case in the shortest possible time.
At the time, since Chicago's history, this was the second very vicious homicide that had occurred, and it was one of the worst mass murders in Illinois history, and people at the time called the case the "Brown Fried Chicken Shop Massacre."
task force
Because there was too little evidence left at the scene, the special case team did not spare any corner, preserving all the evidence at the scene that year, even garbage and discarded ingredients, and wanted to wait for the development of forensic science and technology to verify the truth.
However, at the scene, the task force found the following clues:
1. According to the cash register of the on-site restaurant, the murderer's great purpose is for money, because the restaurant turnover of 1800-1900 US dollars on that day was all taken away.
2, there is only one messy table and chairs, the rest are all neatly arranged, the last table is the insider or the murderer? There is no evidence.
3. When the murderer left, he also stayed briefly and disposed of the blood stains. Because the mop was found to have blood smeared back and forth.
4 or 7 victims were mainly caused by gunshot wounds, with a total of more than 20 warheads.
5, the front door of the fried chicken shop is closed, the back door can be opened, there are not too many traces of fighting, suspect that the murderer is familiar with the environment in the store.
However, these clues were not enough to bring breakthrough progress to the case, and the special case team immediately launched a large-scale visit and mapping, and hundreds of current and former employees of the fried chicken shop were all excluded from suspicion, and the special case team had no way to start.
This unresolved case has always hung in the hearts of the citizens of Palatine.
3
Fried chicken into evidence
Nine years after the incident, in March 2002, a turnaround occurred. A man named Anne Lockett volunteered to go to the police station and report that he knew who the culprit of the fried chicken shop massacre was.
Anne Lockett
Anne said the killers were her ex-boyfriend James Degorski and his friend Juan Luna, who had worked part-time at Brown's Fried Chicken Shop. The reason why Juan was able to escape the police inquiry that year was also because Anne helped him commit perjury.
According to Anne's account, Anne and her ex-boyfriend James met before the crime and lived with James for a while. During the days of cohabitation, Anne discovered that James often exhibited traits that frightened her.
James (first from left) and Juan
Mad, gloomy, hostile and suspicious of the people around him, James often asked Anne to cut off contact with her friends, and even found that James often took pleasure in killing small animals with his friend Juan.
Inside James's room, there were several knives and a gun. The gun in particular, James thought it was his biggest secret, never letting people know at will.
After the crime, James and Juan told Annie what they had done, in order to keep Anne a secret and help them testify perjury, or they would kill her.
At that time, Anne was faced with two murderous maniacs, extremely panicked, had to agree, and also helped them to make false testimony. Soon after, Anne and James broke up, and after all these years of trembling, tormented by guilt in her heart, finally justice overcame her fear, and she decided to call the police to expose the two men.
After hearing Anne's complaint, the police immediately sent someone to arrest James and Juan.
James and Juan were arrested
At first, the two of them denied it. Because nearly a decade has passed since the case, there are neither witnesses, nor key exhibits, nor fingerprints at the scene, they believe that as long as they do not admit it, the police and judges will not be able to try them.
But at this time, the police produced a special piece of evidence - fried chicken that had been stored in the freezer.
Fried chicken? Are you also curious about what breakthrough it can bring to the case?
Fried chicken
This also has to start from the beginning of the case a year later, the special case team that has no way to start has specially invited a "god" - Dr. Li Changyu, hoping that with the help of forensic experts, some clues can be found.
Dr. Li Changyu
Since it has been a year since the crime occurred, Dr. Li Changyu and the task force once again tried to review the scene at that time and recall whether there were some missing clues.
Since the murderer was for the money, the cash register must be a key clue. It's just that the day's flow in the cash register has been swept away, and there is only a small ticket at checkout. The time shown on the receipt is 21:07, while the fried chicken shop closes at 9:00 pm.
21:07
In the United States, the concept of time is very strong, and when it is time to leave work, even if a customer comes to the door, he will euphemistically tell that it is not open! From this, it can be seen that the person who dines is an old acquaintance known by the clerks.
At this time, Dr. Li Changyu found a bag of garbage on the spot in one evidence after another, and became extremely interested in this package of garbage.
Because from this bag of garbage found 2 chicken wings, 1 chicken breast, 2 chicken legs. It coincided with the fried chicken set at checkout at 21:07, and there was an extra chicken wing.
Fried chicken set
It is worth noting that only chicken wings have been eaten in the set, and the rest of the food has not moved, indicating that this person is not really here to eat, and he likes to eat chicken wings super much.
Why is there an extra chicken wing here? Dr. Li Changyu deduced that it may be because the staff of the store knew that the customer loved chicken wings, so he sent an extra chicken wing before closing.
As Dr. Lee chang-yu put it, garbage is like a history book, and the contents of the garbage may be of great help to the case, and even help them find additional clues.
Indeed, through the contents of the garbage bag, Dr. Li identified at least 3 things:
First, the last table guest is not only the murderer, but also an old acquaintance in the store.
Second, the murderer is probably a black or Hispanic person! Because according to a large number of data and the preferences of each race are different, generally Asians like to eat chicken legs, white people like to eat chicken breasts, blacks and Hispanics have a special love for chicken wings, and a bag of food only eats chicken wings, the rest are not moved, so Dr. Li Changyu judged that this person is likely to be a black or Hispanic person.
Third, since the murderer ate the chicken wings, the chicken wings will have bite marks on them. There was saliva in the bite marks, and there was the DNA of the murderer in the saliva.
In 1994, very few people knew about DNA technology, not even the Palatine police at the scene of the crime, because the technology at that time could only extract DNA from chicken wings, and could not perform technical analysis on it, so Dr. Li Changyu suggested that samples and evidence be preserved and tested after the technology was mature.
DNA
Sure enough, the police successfully obtained the DNA analysis results of the suspect in a later test.
After catching the suspect, the police compared the DNA of James and Juan, and found that Juan's DNA matched the DNA remaining on the chicken wings exactly.
The evidence was overwhelming, and Juan and James finally confessed to their crimes, and they were the culprits of the Brown Fried Chicken Shop massacre.
Reported
4
Truth
Juan recalls working part-time at the fried chicken shop, knowing that the fried chicken shop did not have a security system, and thought that it would be easy to succeed if he robbed. He and James, both drug addicts, were on tight hands at the time, so they wanted to rob the familiar fried chicken shop to get some money.
Only a small evil of human nature turned into a massacre, causing so many families to fall apart.
That night, he came to the fried chicken shop after it closed, and his old colleague at the fried chicken shop recognized him and not only sold him fried chicken after closing, but also gave him an extra piece of chicken wings because of his relationship with him. Unfortunately, this kind of behavior did not awaken his human kindness, and Juan immediately began his slaughter after eating the chicken wings.
They threatened everyone to enter the freezer themselves, and as soon as anyone showed resistance, he would first cut them in the throat with a sharp object and then shoot them.
Juan describes his crime for forty-three minutes, and at the end of the expression, Juan gradually lowers his tone and apologizes for the crime he committed.
But this demonic apology came too late to be forgiven.
trial
In addition to Annie, another lady, Irene, also denounced the two of them as the culprits, and she also said that James had confessed to her and threatened her not to talk nonsense, and she testified with Annie.
Based on dna evidence and the testimony of these two witnesses, Juan was convicted of seven counts of murder and sentenced to death! But the jury did not unanimously pass, one juror opposed the execution, and Juan was eventually sentenced to life in prison without parole.
On September 29, 2009, James was also tried in public and convicted of seven counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
At this time, the police also shouted that they were soulless people. This murder has really come to an end here.
Sales at the Brown fried chicken chain were also deeply affected, falling 35 percent, and eventually the company had to close more than 100 restaurants in the Chicago area. Currently, Chase Bank is located in the former location of the original restaurant.
Chase Bank
In 2013, a customer of Chase Washus was still horrified in an interview with ABC 7, the American broadcasting company.
"I'm not going to walk in the building. For me, it's a sacred place where people lose their lives. ”
It also reflects that the consequences of the event cannot be erased by time.
In fact, the DNA results were obtained as early as 1998, but unfortunately, a complete DNA database had not been established at that time, and it was impossible to compare, so it could only be temporarily shelved.
The extreme lack of evidence chain, coupled with the limitations of criminal investigation technology at that time, made me think that this case was like a relay race, first of all, a chicken wing sent by the clerk, then the police at the scene who even had to keep a chicken bone, followed by Dr. Li Changyu's advanced technical means, and finally an Annie's denunciation of the goodness of human nature.
We have always believed that the devil is one foot tall, the road is one foot high, and the goodwill of human nature can finally overcome the malice of human nature.
The above is the investigation report of the third sister, your praise and attention is the biggest encouragement to me, the little sister is grateful, we will see you in the next issue.